Artistic Director Jeanne Harrison draws on her 31 years as a director and acting teacher to bring out the best in every performer, coalescing them into a powerful, supportive ensemble capable of telling the world’s greatest stories.

We have been going to see Shakespeare shows at festivals where, in addition to a regular cast, they also have Equity actors perform. Your kids did as good of a job as we have ever seen — we were totally blown away. My husband could not believe that your kids were high school kids and not college kids.

– Audience Member

By focusing on classical theatre, Traveling Players trains performers who are bold, resourceful, and skilled. If you can act Shakespeare, then you can act anything. Classical acting is demanding — and remains foundational to all modern acting technique. Hence, a summer at Traveling Players trains you to act not just anything, but anywhere. All the world’s a stage!

Traveling Players summer programs offer expert training in acting, character creation, physical comedy, stage combat, improvisation, and text analysis. A typical day includes intensive rehearsals in addition to classes taught by expert faculty, expanding each performers skill set.

All students who want to participate in Shakespeare Troupe must attend an audition, held virtually over Zoom. Please prepare a Shakespearean monologue of your choice (min. 14 lines).  Auditions will also include improvisational games as well as cold readings from the text of the play.  Please familiarize yourself with the plot and characters.  The fee for the audition is $60.
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All accepted actors must attend a mandatory casting audition on Sunday, May 23, 2-5 pm. You won’t need to prepare anything additional for this one. Come as you are!

The Taming of the Shrew is Shakespeare’s classic battle between the sexes.  Watch our lovers disguise themselves, trick one another, struggle for power, and woo, all in the name of love.  When the games and wedding celebrations have subsided, then true identities are revealed — for better and for worse.

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The play that you think of as Shrew is really a play-within-a-play, similar to “Pyramus and Thisbe” of Midsummer Night’s Dream fame.  There’s a framing device, the Induction, that begins Shrew and is often cut from productions — partly because most people don’t think it’s necessary, and partly because it’s incomplete. It begins to frame the plot, interrupts it twice, and then just disappears. But the plagiarized script Taming of A Shrew (vs. THE Shrew) retained the Induction, and we will, too, making the Kate-Petrucchio plot a play-within-a-play performed by traveling players who are roaming the countryside while the theatres in London are closed from the outbreak of The Plague (all true in 1594, when most scholars think the play was written).

The Bianca subplot was not written by Shakespeare and is almost pure Commedia. We will be using Commedia archetypes strongly in our production but without the traditional leather Commedia masks. It will be a very physical production. There will be an onstage audience for the show — the Induction folks — who will interact with the play and be a Greek chorus/ideal audience of sorts. They will get lots of good improvisation work to do. And then the “actors” will do Vaudevillian-style acts to cover scene/costume changes during the play-within-the-play. One of the many reasons that I love working on this play is that it is a great ensemble piece that really reflects the skills/talents/interests of the ensemble.

Students spend 6 weeks nestled in the scenic woods of Virginia, rehearsing, taking classes, and making friends and memories for a lifetime!

Students live in Five Star Rustic Cabins (with electricity and AC!) in one of four villages.  To ensure social distancing the cabin capacity has been reduced from 14 students to 7.  Showers & bathrooms are a short walk from the cabins.

Student and staff cabins are interspersed in the 4 cabin villages.  Staff are nearby, attentive and available, while still allowing students an appropriate level of privacy.

Students eat a delicious, diverse and healthy menu. Fresh produce is always available, and every meal will have multiple entre options, including vegetarian options.

When not in rehearsal, students can join a variety of exciting activities: swimming, hiking, challenge courses, river hiking, assisting in the costume and props shops, or just chilling out.  On Thursdays, and in the evenings, the community will come together to compete in our popular inter-ensemble CAMPionship and color wars, as well as celebrate each other’s artistic growth during Revels.

Students are immersed in an intentional community of their peers.  They will help maintain the community (sweeping their cabins/chopping vegetables) as well as shape it, by suggesting events and activities they want to pursue. The Forum is our weekly  inter-ensemble meeting where everyone can come together and make choices that benefit the community (like proposing a new class or activity). It is a way for our students to have a meaningful impact on the community, and it gives them appropriate responsibility for the communities’ wellbeing and joy.

Camping out in tents allow students to enjoy all nature has to offer.  During campouts students learn the fundamentals of Leave No Trace camping, including how to pitch a tent, build a fire and campfire cooking. And of course, no campout is complete without plenty of s’mores!

I had no idea that Traveling Players would be one the most interesting lines on my resume that every college interviewer asked me a question about.

⁠⁠— Former Student & Faculty

While not all of our alumni pursue theatre professionally, those that do have found great success. Our students have attended Brown, Harvard, Yale, Emerson, Muhlenberg, NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, among other colleges, often receiving artistic awards and/or scholarships. Our alumni are currently working with the SITI Company, Trinity Rep, Shakespeare & Company and Cal Shakes.

My ability to take on big projects, deal with time constraints, work in groups, take positions of leadership, and improvise new solutions under difficult circumstances are all part of what I learned at Traveling Players.  They have allowed me to follow my passions in all directions–political, activist, artistic, charitable and personal–and they have made me a more flexible and resilient person.

⁠— Former Student & Faculty

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All-Inclusive Tuition: $8350
($8700 after the Early Bird Discount flies away March 26th at midnight)

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