Shakespeare in Action

For thirty-two years, Shakespeare in Action (SIA) has aspired to enhance the arts and education through exploring and performing Shakespeare’s plays: fostering literacy, enhancing creativity and promoting speech arts by making the language and stories of Shakespeare accessible and relevant to audiences of all ages.  We have accomplished this by presenting Canadian interpretations and adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays for young audiences, and growing arts education outreach programs in schools, libraries and community centres.

In 2019, SIA became the resident professional theatre company at the new Artscape Weston Common in Toronto’s northwest.  As one of the few professional theatre organizations residing in this part of the city, we have begun to call Weston our permanent home and broaden our mandate to provide productions and learning opportunities that engage and reflect our community

As an area that has been disproportionately affected by COVID-19, SIA has also pivoted our work during this pandemic to grow local partnerships and provide emergency support.  We began the Artists Supporting Community Initiative (ASCI) which provides paid opportunities for out of work artists to assist emergency frontline agencies (food delivery for seniors, food prep, etc), as well as piloting free Pop Up Programming in the summer 2020 and 2021 for low-income youth where internet access is a barrier.

Inspired by some of the work and partnerships we engaged in over the pandemic, SIA changed our vision and mission toward growing a performing arts ecosystem anchored in community in 2021.