News & Events Actors From The London Stage to Perform Macbeth Nov. 6 and 7 at Amherst College

October 31, 2007
Contact: Emanuel Costache '09
Media Relations Intern
413/542-2321
Caroline Jenkins
Director of Media Relations
413/542-8417

AMHERST, Mass. – Actors From The London Stage (AFTLS), the international touring theater company based at the University of Notre Dame, will perform Shakespeare’s Macbeth at Amherst College’s Holden Theatre on Tuesday, Nov. 6 and Wednesday, Nov. 7 at 8 p.m. Admission is free and open to the public, but seating is limited and will be available on a first-come, first-served basis only. (Please note there is no box office for this event.) The AFTLS performances are part of a weeklong residency at Amherst, during which the actors will perform on campus and visit literature and theater classes.

Now in its 32^nd year, AFTLS is one of the oldest touring Shakespeare theater companies in the world. The troupe is housed and the performances are workshopped in England, and the actors come from such prestigious companies as the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Royal National Theatre of Great Britain and Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre.

Under the auspices of the Marie P. DeBartolo Center for the Performing Arts at the University of Notre Dame, AFTLS takes up residency at 16 to 20 colleges and universities each year offering performances, workshops and classroom visits during each weeklong stay. The company is unique in that, though they have a number of directors involved along the way, the performances have no one director. There is, as Academic Director Peter Holland says, “no directorial concept to tower over the text of Shakespeare’s play.” Instead, the performance is a collaboration of a small group of actors.

The AFTLS events at Amherst are sponsored by the department of English and supported by the department of theater and dance and the Eastman Fund.

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