Acting Shakespeare: Process, Priorities, and Performance

This class is not being offered Spring 2022.


“A super-enjoyable, very challenging, immersive college-level seminar
on acting Shakespeare, with a lot of personal attention.”

"The course was well thought out, systematic yet with room for questions and discoveries."

"I loved the handouts and walking away with practical tools that I can use from here on out. The aspect of going from 'being hired' to 'performance day' with all the steps in between, was very helpful and made the process seem less daunting."


This is ISC's advanced acting class, aimed at actors who have some experience and/or training in acting (but not necessarily in Shakespeare) or have completed our introductory acting class.

The goal of this class is to help actors develop the skills to approach any Shakespearean role with confidence. The focus will be on:

  • reading Shakespeare skillfully
  • developing a consistent, repeatable process for preparing roles and scenes
  • delivering the language effectively and getting the most out of it
  • becoming a valuable contributor to each stage of the rehearsal process
  • creating performances that have the strongest impact on the audience

Actors will work through each step of the process from casting to performance in the real-world context of preparing a specific character and scene.

We’ll also cover some practical topics such as:

  • how to audition - what to do and what not to do
  • how to approach a long speech
  • techniques for efficient line memorization
  • key principles of effective stage movement

Actors will be expected to memorize lines and work on their characters and scenes outside of class time.

Actors who have taken the class before are welcome to take it again at a discounted price to work on different characters and scenes (or to continue working on the same characters and scenes in more depth). If this applies to you, please e-mail us for more information.

This class is not being offered Spring 2022.

For more information, e-mail us at info@ithacashakespeare.org or watch this page for more details.