FLORIDA SHAKESPEARE THEATER
ABOUT US
In July of 2018, Shakespeare Miami officially changed its name to The Florida Shakespeare Theater, in order to better reflect it's regional mission.
CORE VALUES
Excellence:
We hold ourselves to high artistic and professional standards and strive to provide excellence in our work onstage, and to the organization.
Ensemble:
We are a part of a team that is working towards a common goal. We provide a supportive and professional workplace, where we work with espirit d' corps to strive for excellence with trust, respect, compassion and professional accountability.
Access:
We believe that by providing open access for all to our performances, we are not only building the audiences of tomorrow, but we are practicing great citizenship. Our society only benefits when citizens have access to the arts .
Respect for all:
The Florida Shakespeare Theater does not discriminate on the grounds of race, sexual orientation, national origin, sex, gender or disability, and does not use vendors who do.
MISSION
The mission of The Florida Shakespeare Theater is to promote literacy, culture and a passion for the arts through free performances of the works of William Shakespeare.
The Cost of a family attending a cultural event together has become prohibitively expensive for the average family in America. Schools have cut arts programming and field trips to see live performances. Often, the first live theatrical production a family in South Florida attends is a free Shakespeare in the Park Event.
The Florida Shakespeare Theater's goal is to produce professional productions of Shakespeare's plays, and present them to the public in South Florida - Free of charge.
WE BELIEVE
We believe that when people attend or participate in cultural activities, they open their minds to new ideas, and they can enrich their lives and the lives of others through live performance. We believe that arts have the power to inspire, heal, lead and entertain.
Live theater has the capacity to trigger reflection, generate empathy, create dialogue and foster new ideas that can cross political, intellectual and geographic boundaries.
Shakespeare's plays, though 400+ years old, touch on profound human truths, and offer us powerful and democratic ways of expressing, sharing and shaping human values.
Why Free Shakespeare?
When I was in high school in suburban Detroit, my Shakespeare teacher, Miss Ruth Tharp, would take her classes to the Stratford Shakespeare Festival outside of Toronto Canada.
She would pay the way for any of us who earned an 'A' in her class. This was in "1978 High School Teacher pay".
Her only rule was that we needed to pay it forward when we grew up.
Unfortunately, Miss Tharpe passed away before I had the chance to really thank her and to tell her that I was paying her kindness and her generosity forward through the work of Shakespeare Miami.
Shakespeare Miami is my way of paying back a mentor and role model. In Miss Tharp's memory, I run this company for free. I fight to keep all performances free and open to anyone who wants to attend. It's my gift to my community.