Shakespeare at Notre Dame
Sharing. Serving. Advancing.
Shakespeare at Notre Dame (S@ND) is dedicated to advancing the study and performance of William Shakespeare for the audiences, students, and scholars of the next 400 years. By producing programming that aligns the values of contemporary society to the versatile worlds created within his canon, we seek to “hold the mirror up to nature” and imagine bold, new realities—both onstage and off—that champion a diversity of thought and identity; reinvent models of engagement toward greater access, inclusion, and equity; and contribute to the global dialogue of Shakespeare’s possibility in the here and now.
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S@ND encompasses a number of programs and initiatives, among them the Notre Dame Shakespeare Festival, Actors From The London Stage, and the Shakespeare in Prisons Network. S@ND also partners with student organizations at the University of Notre Dame including the Not-So-Royal Shakespeare Company as well as community-based organizations such as the Renegade Shakespeare Company.
- A Notre Dame tradition since 2000, the Notre Dame Shakespeare Festival (NDSF) is the company’s annual celebration of Shakespeare, with productions featuring professional, student, and local talent. Each NDSF season includes a mainstage Professional Company production alongside Community Company events such as ShakeScenes and Shakespeare After Hours.
- Founded in 1975 by Dr. Homer “Murph” Swander, Sir Patrick Stewart, and other luminaries from the Royal Shakespeare Company, Actors From The London Stage (AFTLS) is one of the world’s oldest touring Shakespeare companies, calling Notre Dame its artistic home since 2000. AFTLS is a dynamic, five-actor ensemble that brings weeklong residencies to colleges and universities across the United States in the fall and spring semesters. Each residency features up to 35 in-class workshops in disciplines across the academy and culminates in a tour-de-force performance of a Shakespeare play where each actor performs numerous roles.
- Since 2012, the Shakespeare in Prisons Network (SiPN) has served as a global forum for the prison and community arts practitioner community. Collectively, we promote the production and study of the works of William Shakespeare (and other authors) within carceral and alternative settings, while advocating on a local, national, and international level on behalf of organizations engaged in arts programming for and by incarcerated and post-incarcerated populations. Locally, S@ND leads Shakespeare in performance classes at the Westville Correctional Facility in Westville, IN, and the DePaul Academy (housed within the Thomas Frederick Juvenile Justice Center) in South Bend, IN.
