Shakespeare Theatre Association of America

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Colorado Shakespeare Festival will host the 2011 STAA Conference. The dates are January 6, 7, 8 with a possible pre-conference line-up of activities on January 3, 4, and 5. Watch this site for more information.

You can now read the most recent newsletter from STAA President Jim Helsinger along with some of the 2010 Conference notes after you log on. Look for the Member Services heading and then click the Member Files link.

Delegates representing over 100 Shakespeare-producing theatres and festivals from the USA and Canada attended the twentieth annual conference of Shakespeare Theatre Association of America (STAA) at Shakespeare's Globe in London January 6 - 9, 2010.
The conference programme, entitled Who Owns Shakespeare?, was devised in cooperation with then current President of STAA, Philip Sneed, Artistic Director of the Colorado Shakespeare Festival. Peter Kyle, Chief Executive of Shakespeare's Globe; Dominic Dromgoole, Artistic Director; and Patrick Spottiswoode, Director, Globe Education all led sessions during the conference. Adrian Noble, former artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company was a guest speaker.

Delegates were taken on a private visit to Middle Temple Hall, the venue of the first recorded performance of Twelfth Night where Tim Carroll, former Associate Theatre Director at Shakespeare’s Globe, explored the influence of playing spaces on performance. Tim Carroll directed Twelfth Night at Middle Temple Hall before its transfer to the Globe for the play's 400th anniversary in 2002.

Other highlights of the conference included an introductory performance by Globe actor Peter Hamilton Dyer of selections from Goethe and George Bernard Shaw, a Paul Robeson exhibit and talk, warm-ups on the Globe stage led by the theatre's exuberant Head of Movement Glynn MacDonald, tours of the Globe led in part by its builder Peter McCurdy, visits to the archeological sites of the Rose Theatre and the original Globe Theatre, and many enlivening and enlightening sessions with conference participants. STAA members enjoyed the hospitality of the Globe's bar and restaurants, evenings free to take in productions on the West End and at the National Theatre, and time for a bit of sightseeing and shopping around the great city of London.

Prior to the conference, Patrick Spottiswoode, who is also a member of the STAA Executive Committee, says: "Shakespeare's Globe is honoured to be hosting this conference and looks forward to discussing key issues of ownership with fellow artistic, managing and education directors including the influence of the recession on choices of repertoire, who really owns Shakespeare's text, how theatres are responding to changing demographics and reaching out to new audiences, particularly youth. Young people taking ownership of Shakespeare has always been at the heart of our work at the Globe - a theatre where actors and audiences share the same light.”

Participants agreed that, despite snow and ice and a few delayed flights, the 20th STAA conference was a rousing success. The 2011 conference will be hosted by the Colorado Shakespeare Festival in Denver, Colorado January 5 - 8, 2011, with a possible pre- or post-conference training session to be offered as well.

REVOLUTIONARY SHAKESPEARE CAPTURED ATTENTION OF
STAA MEMBERS IN MASSACHUSETTS WINTER WONDERLAND

Revolutionary Shakespeare was the theme of the 2009 Shakespeare Theatre Association of America (STAA) Conference, held on Jan. 29-Jan. 31, 2009. The conference was hosted by Shakespeare & Company on their 30-acre campus, in Lenox, Massachusetts with much of the activity presented in the recently opened state-of-the-art Production and Performing Arts Center and new Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre. A special performance of Romeo and Juliet was created for young audiences by Shakespeare & Company’s Education Department and was presented at the conference.

The formal STAA conference began on Jan. 29 and closed with the annual member banquet on Jan. 31. Each of the three conference days had its own point of departure: Revolutions Past; Revolutions Present; and Revolutions Forever. General Sessions covered topics such as Revolutionary Moments, Power to the People, and Revolutionary Spaces. Break out sessions included topics raised during general sessions, and included Staging Revolutions; Spreading Revolutions; Tearing Down the Walls; and Writing Revolutions.