Actors From The London Stage at a Glance
Now in its 33rd year, Actors From The London Stage is one of the oldest established touring Shakespeare theater companies in the world. Housed and work shopped in England with academic tours booked through the auspices of the Marie P. DeBartolo Center For The Performing Arts at the University of Notre Dame, this program is truly unique.
Offering a tour in the spring and another in the fall, we visit approximately sixteen to twenty universities in a year, giving students and faculty around the country a chance to experience our dynamic and enriching performing arts program.
Developed by Professor Homer Swander at the University of California-Santa Barbara and founded by the renowned British actor, Patrick Stewart, the one week residency program is truly an actor driven tour de force.
Coming from such prestigious companies such as the Royal Shakespeare Company; the Royal National Theatre of Great Britain; and Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, our classically trained actors devote a large part of their time to student interaction. Be it in classroom workshops, on stage demonstrations, reading select texts as part of a “one hander” or having informal meetings with students who want to know more, AFTLS actors are truly committed to teaching and making themselves entirely accessible to students during their stay on campus.
While they specialize in Shakespeare, our actors can handle any English text with equal aplomb. Because AFTLS actors know that the acting image is within the text, and they demonstrate-by making choices that the text allows-they can bring it out in a way that students understand. For students who work with an actor in class, it will change the way they look at all future plays and poems.
Due to the dynamic hands on nature of our program, the residency experience appeals to more than just English students. Classes, one-handers and performances are often attended by students from other disciplines including: liberal studies, business schools, theater departments, gender studies, university seminars, and graduate programs.
To learn more about how we bring literary texts to life, we encourage you to browse the rest of our website. Here you will read what other presenters say about us, see pictures of our past tours, and get important information on how to make arrangements for an AFTLS tour to visit your campus.