Founded in 2000 by Linda Lowy, Shakespeare Now! Theatre Company, based in Boston, Massachusetts, is a professional company which brings the great works of William Shakespeare to elementary, middle, and high schools in Massachusetts and New England in easily accessible formats. Each performance lasts approximately 1 hour, followed by a question and answer period. Workshops and multi-day residencies for students, led by our actor/educators, are an integral part of our work in schools.
Comprehensive study guides are sent to each school in advance of our performance. Preview our shows.
Linda Lowy, Founding Artistic Director, is an actor and educator who has taught drama and English literature from elementary to college levels. She founded Shakespeare Now! Theatre Company on the premise that the works of Shakespeare provide immensely valuable insight into the human condition to young viewers. Linda believes profoundly in the transformational aspect of theater; that people, and young people especially, can see and hear these great plays and be positively influenced by their messages. She works closely with schools in advance of each performance and workshop to ensure the highest quality enrichment experience for students. Linda has an Mus.B and Ed.M from Boston University, and has trained intensively in text and performance with local teachers and at Shakespeare & Company, Lenox, Mass.
Diego Arciniegas, Associate Director, is a major figure in the local theater scene both as a director and an actor. He is the Artistic Director of The Publick Theatre in Boston. There he has staged much of the Shakespearean canon, from such comedies as Twelfth Night, Much Ado about Nothing, and The Merchant of Venice, to tragedies including Macbeth and Hamlet. His 2005 production of Tom Stoppard's Arcadia won the Elliot Norton Award for Best Production by a Small Resident Company. Diego's most recent local appearance onstage is in the role of Friar Lawrence in the New Repertory Theater's production of Romeo and Juliet. He is an Instructor at Wellesley College, Wellesley, Mass., where he teaches Shakespeare in the English Department, and Shakespeare Performance and Contemporary Acting in the Theater Studies Department.
Diego will be directing our Spring 2007 traveling production of Macbeth.
Daniel Gidron, Associate Director, is one of Boston's preeminent directors. As Associate Director for Boston's Nora Theater; he has directed, among other plays, Mike Leigh's Smelling a Rat, Sophocles' Antigone, and Amlin Gray's How I Got that Story. Last season, he directed The Underpants at the Lyric Stage Company. Other directing credits include: Shakespeare and Company (Golda's Balcony and Full Gallop), Gloucester Stage Company (The Loman Family Picnic), Opera Boston (The Consul by Gian Carlo Menotti), as well as directing for other companies here and world-wide. He taught theater at Brandeis University for many years, and is currently on the theater faculty at U. Mass, Boston. He has directed many touring and full-length productions for Shakespeare Now!
Daniel will be directing our November full-length production of Julius Caesar at Mass. College of Art in Boston.
Jennie Israel, Associate Director, is the Associate Artistic Director for Actors Shakespeare Project. Most recently, she directed The Winter's Tale, Romeo and Juliet, Arthur Kopit's Chamber Music, and The Love of The Nightingale. Acting credits include Helena in All's Well that Ends Well, Goneril in King Lear, Calpurnia/Trebonius/Pindarus in Julius Caesar, Elizabeth in Richard III, all at ASP, plus Lady Macbeth for Commonwealth Shakespeare Company; Tartuffe at New Repertory Theater; Les Liaisons Dangereuses at the Huntington Theatre; Living in Exile at Vineyard Playhouse; The Scarlet Letter and Macbeth with Shakespeare & Company. Jennie has taught voice, Shakespearean text and acting at Bowdoin College, Harvard University, Boston College, SUNY/Purchase, Emerson, and Boston Conservatory. She has an MFA from Yale School of Drama.
Jennie will direct our Spring 2007 touring production of Romeo and Juliet.
Spiro Veloudos, Associate Director, one of Boston's theatrical luminaries, is the Producing Artistic Director of Lyric Stage Company of Boston. Formerly the Artistic Director of the Publick Theatre, he is a three-time Elliot Norton Award-winning director. He has directed classical and contemporary theater, from Shakespeare's Measure for Measure and Comedy of Errors to Sondheim's Assassins, Noises Off by Michael Frayn, and Albee's The Goat. He was a member of the Boston and National Shakespeare Companies performing roles from Biondello in Taming of the Shrew to Prospero in The Tempest. Spiro is a member of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers (SSDC) and is on the adjunct faculty at Emerson College, where he teaches musical theatre performance and text-based acting. In May 2006, he was awarded the Elliot Norton Award for Sustained Excellence in Theater.
Spiro will be directing our Spring 2007 traveling production of A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Dev Luthra, Associate Director, is an actor, director, and drama and movement teacher. His work combines intensive training and experience in Shakespearean performance. Aside from developing and directing the Company's productions, Dev works and plays with teachers and students, leading workshops in Shakespeare's language through improvisatory body and text work. He studied at East 15 Acting School, London, England, and trained at Shakespeare and Company, Lenox, Ma. Dev is on the Drama faculty at the Winsor School in Boston.
Justin Budinoff, Curriculum Writer, is a local writer and director. He has directed versions of Othello and Romeo and Juliet, among many other productions, and writes for theater and screen. He is a graduate of New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. Justin has written Shakespeare Now!'s Study Guides for our productions of A Midsummer Night's Dream, Romeo and Juliet, Scenes from the Great Tragedies, and Julius Caesar.