The Prague Shakespeare Company was founded in early 2008 in Prague, Czech Republic by Guy Roberts, filling a void of professional English-language classical theatre in Central Europe.
In the summer of 2007, as Artistic Director of the Austin Shakespeare Festival, Mr. Roberts received a City of Austin (Texas) grant to collaborate with Divadlo Miloco, a Czech theatre company, to produce and direct an English-language production of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. The production was enthusiastically received and the experience of working with a multinational ensemble of theatre artists, comprised of native and non-native English speakers, combined with the eager welcome from both audiences and artists alike in the Czech Republic galvanized Roberts.
He subsequently resigned his position as Artistic Director of the Austin Shakespeare Festival and created a new English-language based classical theatre company in the Czech Republic – The Prague Shakespeare Company.
Since its inception PSC has fulfilled a vital need for English-language classical theatre events for both native and expat audiences in Central Europe and enriched the lives of numerous artists and students through a variety of public events including performances, workshops, lectures and classes.
Key partnerships in the Czech Republic have included performances and collaborations with Divadlo Miloco, Divadlo Komedie, Prague Playhouse, Bear Educational Theatre, the Globe Bookstore and Cafe and the Prague Film School. Key individual support from Steve Zinkgraf, Jeff Smith, Kendrick Ong, David Fellowes, Vanessa Gendron, Dan Brown, Jeff Fritz, Mel Rada and David Fisher among numerous other Artistic Company Members has also been instrumental to the success of PSC, especially in its early days.
PSC, partnering with Vyšehrad (Vyše Castle), the ancestral home of the City of Prague, presents outdoor English-language performances of Shakespeare on the summer stage of the National Historical Monument of Vyšehrad.
In 2009 PSC took the first steps towards sharing its unique style of creating Shakespeare plays with a wider audience through a collaboration of One Man Hamlet with the Classical Theatre Company in Houston, TX. In the spring of 2011, PSC and CTC will collaborate on a much larger scale, presenting in Houston and the Czech Republic, rotating repertory productions of King Lear and As You Like It, both directed by Roberts, featuring a multinational ensemble of theatre artists from Europe and America.
Gallery
