Shakespeare & Co Center for Actor Training Weekend Intensive

Shakespeare & Company will host a Weekend Intensive at its Lenox, Massachusetts campus from April 19 – 21, 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.

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, Shakespeare & Company’s Weekend Intensives integrate voice, movement, and monologue work. Rigorous attention is paid to identifying and offering skills specific to the needs of the participants throughout the weekend.  

This Intensive will be led by the Center for Actor Training’s Director Sheila Bandyopadhyay, Producing Associate and Designated Linklater Voice Teacher Ariel Bock, and Training Programs Manager Kristen Moriarty. Tuition is $385, and scholarships are available for BIPOC artists. Alumni and union member discounts are also available. 

For more information or to apply, visit shakespeare.org or call 413.637.1199, ext. 114.

Shakespeare & Company’s Center For Actor Training

The aesthetic of Shakespeare & Company was created within the training devised by Founding Artistic Director Tina Packer and a cadre of expert teachers. It is through these programs that the aesthetic is continually investigated, redefined, and reinvigorated, and that welcomes actors, directors, writers, and teachers from all over the world to work with the Company’s faculty. Through the Center for Actor Training, Shakespeare & Company’s performance artists, education artists, and artist managers develop a common artistic vocabulary and a coherent approach to performing Shakespeare.

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.

Ariel Bock has been an actor, director and voice teacher at Shakespeare & Company for more than 20 years, she’s served as Artistic Associate and Producing Associate, and has been on the faculty as an acting or voice teacher at Dartmouth College, Smith College, and MIT, and has led many workshops both for professional and pre-professional actors and for those interested in Theater-in-Education.

Kristen Moriarty is a teaching artist, actor, mom, sentimentalist, and an infinite seeker of thinking and feeling deeply. After earning her BFA in Acting/Dance at 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 where she fell in love with Shakespeare’s language and its capacity to reveal the truth; the power of listening, honesty, and being present; and the Berkshires. 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 theatre, and society, for all people, Kristen loves working with actors who are curious—about themselves and the world—and helping facilitate personal growth and deepening belief in self. A boundless student, Kristen is grateful to continue learning from her students, colleagues, and certainly her daughters, and hopes to become a Designated Linklater Teacher someday.