About Us

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The Shakespearience Group was created in 2014 as part of Founding Director, Lauren Shepherd's research project at The University of Toronto. During this time the inaugural performance of the group (Fortune's Fools) was centred around the exploration of Madness in Shakespeare's female characters on stage. Lauren, and her co-founders, Marlene Matos-Jones and Miranda MacDonald, went on to experiment and perform their piece at a festival in Burlington in the summer of 2014, and the group was formed. It was their goal to offer an experience of Shakespeare in performance that not only questioned the text, and pushed boundaries, but allowed the audience to receive the words from a place of knowledge - even if they were never truly confident in their understanding of Shakespeare before. This desire has grown and expanded into creating productions that encompass the concept of learning and teaching Shakespeare to performers in a way that allows them to bring to life the words of Shakespeare for their audience. The Shakespearience Group's goal is to offer both learning and teaching opportunities for performers (youth, amateur, semi-professional, and professional alike) by creating production courses where participants can expand their Shakespeare vocabulary and personal canon, and perform and learn together in a repertory apprenticeship setting. Shakespeare should be accessible to all, and exciting and interesting to everyone!