Shakesperience Productions, Inc.

With almost 30 years of programming, Shakesperience has reached well over one million students. We raise the support for underserved students and schools to receive many of our workshops, classes, and performances for FREE. Our signature public presence for people of all ages is the annual and professional Shakespeare in the Litchfield Hills, FREE outdoor Shakespeare. For each of these core missions, this award-winning organization needs YOUR support.

Shakesperience was founded in 1996 with a mission to educate and inspire students, families, and theater professionals through the arts. It is a nonprofit professional theater company located in Connecticut that reaches a Northeast audience of adults and students alike with outdoor and in-studio performances, Saturday and private acting classes, school & camp tours, and residency programs. Our iconic Neighborhoods Program has grown into a year-round multigenerational humanities project, this year celebrating CT250! Please give as generously as you can!

To show donor appreciation, Shakesperience invites you to join us on Facebook and in-person for 36 Hours of FREE programming during Give Local 2025! It's Shakespeare-a-thon! The full menu of offerings for the event appears when you click the link. Join us to participate, donate, act, sing, dance, listen, read, share your story, and more!

Who We Are

Shakesperience has seen a total freeze on our touring and in-studio programs as a result of Covid-19. As a result, we are struggling to find the funds to keep our doors open and the lights on. We, therefore, would like to request a special gift (during Give Local 2020 on April 21 and 22) from all of our friends and supporters to help us survive this troubled time.

We would not use this gift to help ourselves. We would help the scores of children, now isolated, who rely on us—kids like Michelline, who didn’t fit in at school. She was bullied and doubted herself. Through her participation with Shakesperience, she found a safe and supportive space to explore herself as an artist and as a human being and has grown into a confident and spectacular young lady. Your gift allows us to provide this safe space, online or otherwise, for Michelline and hundreds of other children like her to develop the creativity, confidence, and teamwork that are so necessary to confront unprecedented challenges like this.

These days, it may seem that the arts are “non-essential.” But, whether it be streaming your favorite films, picking up that book you’ve been meaning to read, or dancing in the kitchen to your favorite music, you know the arts are more essential than ever in times of hardship. They connect human beings in a way that social distancing cannot erase. Any gift donated during the Give Local would help us keep the torch of live theatre alive through this present darkness so we may come out the other side the brighter, and keep our community and our audiences alive, well, and prepared for many years to come.