LENOX, Mass. – Shakespeare & Company will host four Weekend Intensives across the country this fall, designed for professional actors and theater students who seek an introduction to Shakespeare & Company’s training methods, as well as alumni who wish to refresh and reconnect with the work.
Intensives are planned in New York, N.Y. (September 29 – October 1); Atlanta, Ga., hosted by Atlanta Shakespeare Company at the Shakespeare Tavern Playhouse (October 13 – 15); at the Shakespeare & Company campus in Lenox, Mass. (October 20 – 22), and San Francisco, Calif. (November 3 – 5).
The Weekend Intensive integrates voice, movement, and monologue work. Participants explore ways to unlock the emotional and intellectual content inherent in Shakespeare’s language, yielding a direct relationship between actor and text. Rigorous attention is paid to identifying and offering skills specific to the needs of the participants throughout the course of the weekend.
Sessions include voice, movement, and monologue exercises aimed at furthering the actor’s connection with Shakespeare’s text through both individual and group work.
Tuition is $385; actors who have completed the Month-long Intensive, Summer Shakespeare Intensive (formerly the Summer Training Institute), or Conservatory programs are eligible for 15% discounts, and members of acting unions and of the Shakespeare Theatre Association (STA) are eligible for 10% discounts on tuition for Weekend Intensives.
For more information or to apply, visit shakespeare.org.
Faculty Bios
Sheila Bandyopadhyay is the Director of Training for Shakespeare & Company, leading its Center for Actor Training. A director, deviser, movement specialist, Alexander Technique and yoga teacher, Bandyopadhyay has been part of the faculty at Shakespeare & Company since 2007. Her Movement Direction credits include Macbeth (The Humanist Project); Mother Courage and her Children, The Cherry Orchard (American Academy of Dramatic Arts Company); Hamlet, Measure for Measure (NYU Gallatin), and Twelfth Night (FSU Conservatory/Asolo Rep). She has directed shows in New York at the Brick, the United Solo Festival (Theater Row), the Tank, the Women in Theater Festival (the Gural), the West End Theater, and the 72nd St Theater Lab. Bandyopadhyay’s favorite roles include Stephano in The Tempest (Stages on the Sound), Tamora in Titus Andronicus (The Humanist Project) and Bianca/Grumio in The Taming of the Shrew (Tempest Ladies). She is a proud member of the Humanist Project and a sponsored artist with Leviathan Lab.
Andrew Borthwick-Leslie has taught, directed, and acted at Shakespeare & Company for 20 years. He is also the co-Artistic Director of The Humanist Project in New York, N.Y.. He has taught acting and voice at the University of Pennsylvania, Temple University, Emerson College, DeSales University and the University of Maryland among others. Andrew has run workshops for the Center for Renaissance Studies, the American Bar Association, the New England Homeless Veterans shelter and many more. He has directed, devised, or assisted on over fifty productions—from Cymbeline to Perestroika. Most recently he directed Love’s Labour’s Lost and Merchant of Venice for the Shakespeare Forum at the Gym at Judson in Washington Square, Macbeth and Frances Goes to War for The Humanist Project, and Double Falsehood for the Letter of Marque Theater Company.
Jen Rabbitt Ring is based in Washington, D.C., and specializes in Acting, Linklater Voice, Presence, and Public Speaking. Rabbitt Ring coaches in-person out of her studio and remotely via Zoom. In addition to coaching privately, Rabbit Ring has taught Voice, Acting, Movement, Storytelling, and Public Speaking at the college level and to students and professionals of all ages for more than a decade. She is a Designated Linklater Voice teacher, and received an MFA in Acting from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University. She has also trained as a teaching artist with the Michael Chekhov Acting Studio in New York, N.Y., and Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, Mass. She is an Emeritus company member with Mile Square Theatre in Hoboken, N.J., and a co-founder of the educational residency program of CoLab Arts in central New Jersey.
Ariel Bock has been an actor, director and voice teacher at Shakespeare & Company for more than 20 years, and currently serves as Producing Associate. She is a Designated Linklater Teacher and has been on the faculty as an acting or voice teacher at Shakespeare & Company’s Center for Actor Training, as well as Dartmouth College, Smith College, and M.I.T., and has led many workshops both for professional and pre-professional actors, and those interested in Theater-in-Education.
Kristen Moriarty is a teaching artist and actor with a BFA in Acting/Dance from Adelphi University. She worked as an actor and movement choreographer in Chicago for several years before going back to school to pursue an MFA in acting/teaching at the University of Montana. In 2011, while earning her MFA, she also began her actor training with Shakespeare & Company. Under the guidance of her teaching mentors Dennis Krausnick and Andrew Borthwick-Leslie, she began her journey as a teacher trainee with the Company in 2017, and joined the multi-hyphenate and exceptional faculty at Shakespeare & Company in 2022 where she currently teaches Text, Basics, and Weekend workshops. Passionate about contributing to brave spaces and creating a more just and welcoming theater, and society for all people. She hopes to become a Designated Linklater Teacher someday.
Marie Ramirez Downing is an Assistant Professor of Theatre Arts Performance and Director of The Acting Program at Sonoma State University in the North Bay of California. She has an MFA in Acting from The Theatre School at DePaul University, and a B.A. in Theatre Arts, Acting from California State University, Fresno. She is a Designated Linklater Voice Teacher (Shakespeare & Company 2012). Ramirez Downing is also a Bronze Founding Member of the Linklater Centre in Orkney, Scotland where she has continued her training as a voice teacher and actor with Kristin Linklater, Louis Colaianni, Paula Langton and Ken Cheeseman. She led Linklater Teachers in a Collaborative Continuing Professional Development workshop for the Centre on Identity and the Voice in the Fall of 2021. Most recently, she received a grant through the Koret Scholars Program at SSU that provided scholarships to BIPOC Theatre arts students to participate in professional voice workshops and write and present about their experiences with each technique. 2022 creative projects include leading a workshop titled “Voice and Presence: Behind the Mask, On Zoom, and In the Classroom” at the Western Academy of Management in Hawaii performing Shakespeare’s Sonnets with world renowned voice and acting teacher Patsy Rodenburg at the National Opera House in New York City. Marie is also making her Bay Area directing debut at the 6th Street Playhouse with Josefina Lopez’s play Real Women Have Curves. She is an elected Board Member for the Voice and Speech Trainers Association (VASTA) term 2019-2022.
About the Center for Actor Training
Shakespeare & Company’s curriculum is internationally recognized as a deeply effective training experience for actors who aspire to bring their talent, intuition, and spirit to a higher level. Through the Center for Actor Training, actors, directors, writers, and teachers from all over the world come to work with the Company’s faculty to train their voices and their bodies with a daily regimen of demanding classes, and to delve deeply into their own imaginations, intellects, and emotional lives. To bring a Weekend Intensive to your city, theater company, or university, contact us.