The Shakespeare Adventure of a Lifetime!
Our Shakespeare Troupe is a pre-professional summer acting conservatory, perfect as a pre-college theatre program for high school drama students
Experience a professional-level production while still in high school with this rigorous six week summer theatre conservatory program. The Shakespeare Troupe rehearses a full-length professionally directed and designed Shakespeare play — then takes the show on the road with a performance tour to amphitheaters throughout Virginia, including professional stages!
The National Endowment for the Arts identified Shakespeare Troupe as offering challenges unlike any other pre-college theatre program in the nation. This immersive and holistic experience allows our elite high school actors to attain a new level of artistry, confidence, leadership, and independence.
Actors are carefully guided by a trio of directors, ensuring every actor is challenged and grows — on stage and off!
By audition only. For current 9th – 12th graders.
Only 2 Spots Left!
Our daughter has absolutely blossomed under the tutelage of your programs…She is gaining confidence, not only as an actor, but as a person. And for that, you… have our deepest thanks; for everything you do and offer!
-Parent
Auditions
All auditions will be on a rolling basis. Please register online and the director will reach out to set up a date & time.
- Early Bird Discount and Payment Plan no longer available.
Program Dates:
- June 25 — August 4 (6 weeks) – Only 2 Spots Left!
- Mid-summer Vacation: July 14 (11:30 am) – July 16 (1:00 pm)
- Tour: July 26 – August 2
Program Rates:
- Audition Fee: $60
- Tuition: $8950
($9450 after the Early Bird Discount flies away Jan 31st)
Please contact us to schedule an audition.
LIMITED AVAILABILITY: Shakespeare Troupe is strictly limited to 14 performers. We will only hold auditions if space is still available. We recommend registering for the earliest audition you can.
OUT OF THE AREA? AUDITION VIRTUALLY!: Our summer conservatories are residential, so our campers come from across the country & globe! Register for the audition and we’ll set up a date & time that works for you.
If you are coming from out of town, we will help you to find a castmate or Alumni family that you can stay with over the Mid-summer break! Traveling Players is fortunate to have a generous and interconnected community. Just let us know that you are interested in being hosted, and we will connect you with another family in your ensemble or alumni family who will be eager to welcome you.
Need to audition from afar? No problem! Please see the Auditions FAQ page for details.
Watch the trailer for our 2013 Shakespeare Troupe’s Much Ado About Nothing!
Romeo & Juliet
By shakespeare
Brawls are breaking out in the streets of Verona. The feud between the Capulets and Montagues is at a boiling point, and the Prince himself has stepped in to keep the peace. So when Romeo (a Montague) and Juliet (a Capulet) suddenly fall in love, the world is against them from the start.
The famously star-crossed lovers struggle against domineering parents, the laws of church and state, and even their own affections in Shakespeare’s breathless tale of a love that transformed the city of Verona.
All students who want to participate in Shakespeare Troupe must attend an audition. Please prepare a Shakespearean monologue of your choice (min. 14 lines). You can perform a monologue that we’ve seen before — from a previous play or class at Traveling Players. It’s important, however, that it’s memorized and you’re living through the character moment by moment. Feel free to choose a character or any gender or age, but please do not choose a piece from this summer’s show.
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.
Out of the area? We still want to see you!
All accepted actors must attend a mandatory casting audition on Sunday, April 23, 3:00 pm – 9:00 pm. You won’t need to prepare anything additional for this one. Come as you are!
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 some of the world’s greatest stories. Two professional actors/acting coaches serve as assistant directors, thereby allowing each actor to get the attention they deserve to make real breakthroughs as artists, evidenced by the success of our alumni.
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.
Campers spend 6 weeks nestled in the scenic woods of Virginia, rehearsing, taking classes, and making friends and memories for a lifetime!
Campers live in comfy, cozy Lodges (with electricity, AC, and bathrooms – flush toilets & showers!).
- Our campus features 3 Lodges around a central quad. Campers live with near-age peers, expanding their friendships to other ensembles.
- Each Lodge includes two sleeping bays of 8-12 beds (4-6 bunk beds).
- Each Lodge is unique, but all include common areas — inside with big comfy couches for relaxing, memorizing lines and hanging out with your friends; outside with large porches or pavilions offering even more hangout space for each Lodge.
- Staff live in private rooms within the Lodges so that they are nearby, attentive, and available, while still allowing campers an appropriate level of privacy.
- Artistic Director Jeanne Harrison lives next door to the Lodges in a cottage – always available.
Campers eat a delicious, diverse, and healthy menu. Fresh produce is always available, and every meal will have multiple entre options, including vegetarian options. New this year – we’ll send out a questionnaire gathering more information about how each camper eats.
When not in rehearsal, a variety of fun activities are on offer – both exciting and relaxing: swimming, canoeing, hiking, challenge course, volleyball or just chilling out in a hammock. On weekends and in the evenings, the community will come together for inter-ensemble activities like improv jams, color wars, talent shows, and camp prom, as well as celebrate each other’s artistic growth during Revels.
Campers 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 Lodge Forum is our weekly inter-ensemble meeting where everyone can come together and make choices that benefit the community. It is a way for our campers 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 — and let’s them be just with their ensemble for one night a week. During campouts, campers 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!
After 5-weeks of rehearsals, we’ll hit the road by bus and by backpack for a professional performance tour. We won’t return to camp each night, instead we’ll explore and campout in some of the most beautiful campgrounds Virginia has to offer.
Past tours have included performances at The Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage, Colonial Williamsburg, Lime Kiln Theater, and Tysons Corner Center.
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
All-Inclusive Tuition: $8950
($9450 after the Early Bird Discount flies away Jan 31st)
- Any gift card balance counts towards your enrollment! You can check your balance at any time here.
- Tell me about discounts!
- The Traveling Players Difference
- Information on financial aid.
300 people auditioned. 22 people were cast. My son, who was a Traveling Players student for many years, will make his Muhlenberg Mainstage debut this November in the Greek tragedy Agamemnon. He is one of only a very few freshmen to be cast in any of the school’s Mainstage productions.
– Parent