Shakespeare and Company

Near here you will find the campus of Shakespeare and Company, one of the leading classical theater companies in the country, and its story begins with a bold experiment at Edith Wharton's estate. In nineteen seventy eight, the British born actress and director Tina Packer founded the company along with a small group of collaborators, and they made their first home outdoors on the grounds of The Mount, Wharton's mansion, which had not yet been restored. Packer believed Shakespeare's language should be spoken with full physical and emotional commitment, and she built a training method to match.

Audiences responded, and for more than two decades the company performed among Wharton's gardens and terraces, weaving the playwright's words into the Berkshire summer. In time Shakespeare and Company outgrew The Mount and moved to its own campus in Lenox, on land off Kemble Street, where it built multiple theaters. One of them is named the Tina Packer Playhouse in honor of the founder, who led the company as its artistic director until she stepped down in two thousand nine.

Packer died in early two thousand twenty six, mourned across the Berkshires as a giant of American theater. Her company continues her mission, presenting Shakespeare and new work each season and training actors from around the world.