Shakespeare Festival

Storytelling And Live Performance To Bridge

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Shakespeare Festival St. Louis uses storytelling and live performance to bridge divides across the St. Louis region.

Now entering its 20th season, Shakespeare Festival has quickly become one of the cultural gems of the bi-state region. Our summer Shakespeare productions play to thousands of residents and visitors every night, offering world-class artistry and an unmatched sense of community in one of America’s great public parks. On clear nights in Shakespeare Glen, our nightly audience can reach nearly 6,000 people—far exceeding the seating capacities of renowned outdoor Shakespeare venues in New York, Oregon, or San DIego.

The Festival is also uniquely positioned, both socially and geographically, to do field-leading work using the arts to address one of the most pressing cultural problems in America today: the growing sense of social isolation and fragmentation, especially between our urban and rural communities. Our internationally recognized Shakespeare in the Streets program empowers residents to tell and own the unique stories of their neighborhoods.

This year, the program is pushing outward and connecting high school students in north St. Louis county (near Ferguson) to ones in rural Brussels, IL, around a large-scale Shakespeare adaptation. Our annual Education Tour brings top quality performances and workshops to 10,000 students in over 50 schools annually, not just in St. Louis but throughout rural Missouri and Illinois. Our Confluence Regional Writers Project supports emerging playwrights across the Midwest. And our SHAKE 101 residencies embed teaching artists in schools for an entire school year and yield significant improvements in student literacy, confidence, and social intelligence.

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