Artist in Residence Program
portia_and_brutus_hsc.jpgtarget1.jpgSince 1995, the Elm Shakespeare Company has been in partnership with the High School in the community (HSC) and developed an innovative program designed to teach at-risk inner city youth the power of William Shakespeare's language. The residency is an 8-week intensive workshop which is included as part of the academic curriculum. Each residency combines analysis of Shakespearean literature and the study of the related time period.

The culmination of each residency is either a Shakespeare's World production, a montage of various scenes from diverse works of Shakespeare with inter-stitching dialogue written by the students, or a 60 minute version of one of Shakespeare's plays. These productions are then performed throughout the New Haven school system for 5th through 8th grade students.

In 1998, a visual arts component was added to the residency through a partnership with the Yale Center for British Art (YCBA). The focus is an exploration of the relationship between literary and visual arts. Several Shakespeare and play-related paintings from the collections of YCBA are included in the interstiching dialogue of the play and are projected behind the actors as backdrops during the performance. This project has fused multiple arts forms in these students' minds and continues to work on making theatre and the visual arts part of their lives.

The Caesar Project was a component of the 2007 HSC residency program.  Click here to see their work.