Our Mission
Our mission is to develop and maintain a diverse, mutually supportive core community of artists that draws from and gives to the greater Pioneer Valley community. With a focus on the understanding of text, we empower artists and audiences to engage with Shakespeare and related works through outdoor and indoor performance, education, and outreach.
Founded in 1989, Hampshire Shakespeare Company is a community of artists dedicated to presenting the works of Shakespeare and promoting theatre in general.
Every summer our Shakespeare Under the Stars series offers performances by both our Mainstage company of adults and our Young Company of school-age actors, all at the UMass Center for Renaissance Studies in Amherst.
Our Educational Division offers workshops and classes to children age 6-17 at the Williston Northampton School in Easthampton. Past activities have included a “Youth and Shakespeare” program teaching literacy and social skills to 8th and 9th graders, and collaborations between Young Company and Enchanted Circle Theater’s Shakespeare Academy.
Other activities of the Company have included productions of the original play Burning Words by Peter Wortsman, a “comedically dramatic” staged reading of Lewis Carroll’s “The Hunting of the Snark: An Agony in Eight Fits”, and a reading of the Welsh epic poem The Mabinogi.
