Babson College And Commonwealth Shakespeare Company Announce Renewed Partnership

WELLESLEY, Mass., Feb. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Newswise -- Babson College and the Commonwealth Shakespeare Company (CSC) have announced an extension of their partnership. For the next three years, CSC will continue to serve as the resident theater company of Babson, the recognized world leader in entrepreneurship education and the only school dedicated to advancing Entrepreneurship of All Kinds(r).

Commonwealth Shakespeare Company became Babson College's theatre in residence in the fall of 2013. This move was unusual for a college with a business focus. While many - even most - universities have an active arts presence on their campuses, it does not appear that the connection between business programs and the arts has been a focus of exploration at other colleges.

"Babson's partnership with the Commonwealth Shakespeare Company is a valued undertaking that allows our community to understand and benefit from the intersection of arts, creativity, innovation, management, and entrepreneurship," said Babson College President Kerry Healey.

"This partnership is a way to enhance the student experience and create programming that augments the academic programs and allows the Babson community the opportunity to explore the connection between entrepreneurship and the creativity that business people need to excel," said Steven Maler, Director of the Sorenson Center for the Arts and Artistic Director of Commonwealth Shakespeare Company.

As a part of renewing the partnership, Babson and CSC are pleased to announce their spring initiatives, including but not limited to:

Shakespeare & Leadership: Othello with Faran Tahir as the title character

When: Wednesday, March 9, at 7 p.m.

Where: Babson's Carling-Sorenson Theater.

* The event is free but registration is required

Commonwealth Shakespeare Company's fourth annual Shakespeare & Leadership on March 9 focuses on Othello. Jealousy rules the motives of nearly every character in Othello, and creates a world where what people are and what they seem to be become indistinguishable. Shakespeare & Leadership features a staged reading of excerpts from the play performed by leaders from the business community alongside professional actors. A panel discussion follows the reading, where the participants address leadership questions and themes raised in the text.

Theatre in the Rough: Death and the Maiden featuring Pedro Pascal from Game of Thrones and Narcos, and Cote de Pablo from NCIS

When: Monday, April 25 at 8 p.m.

Where: Babson's Carling-Sorenson Theater

* The event is free but registration is required

Presented by Commonwealth Shakespeare Company on April 25, Ariel Dorfman's Death and the Maiden is the next installment of CSC's Theatre in the Rough, a script-in-hand reading series presented without theatrical elements like sets or costumes. Starring Chilean actor Pedro Pascal (HBO's Game of Thrones, Netflix's Narcos) and newly added to the cast Cote de Pablo (NCIS), the play takes place after the fall of the totalitarian regime, when a former political prisoner finds herself face-to-face with the man she believes was her captor. Is he guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, or is her paranoia getting the better of her?

A Midsummer Night's Dream - May, 2016

When: Friday, May 6 at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday, May 7, 3 p.m.

Where: Babson's Carling-Sorenson Theater

CSC2, Commonwealth Shakespeare Company's acting company for early-career actors, will perform Shakespeare's romping comedy A Midsummer Night's Dream. With four interconnecting plots dancing between fairyland and real-world Athens, this tale of mixed-up romance lands somewhere between dream and reality.

Babson's Partnership with Commonwealth Shakespeare Company

* CSC has twice brought its signature "Shakespeare and Leadership" series, in which area business executives perform a staged reading of a Shakespeare play and then discuss the leadership issues raised by the work. "Theater in the Rough" staged readings have included guest actors such as Jeffrey Donovan and Seth Gilliam; CSC brought in a fully-staged and critically acclaimed production of Samuel Beckett's play Happy Days with Brooke Adams and Tony Shalhoub. CSC conducted rehearsals on campus for the Boston Common productions of Twelfth Night and King Lear that featured the top actors from the local theater community.

* BabsonARTS has established itself as a presenter of high-quality performances that fill out the schedule of arts offerings on campus, attracting audiences from both inside and outside the Babson community. Examples include multimedia events such as Basetrack Live; guest artists such as the Israeli Stage Company and Doug Elkins Choreography; musicians Jeremy Jordan, Jamie Kent, and others. BabsonARTS has also introduced the Arts & Business Conversations series featuring executives from prominent arts organizations such as American Ballet Theater, the Institute for Contemporary Art, the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, and Sotheby's.

* Many faculty members have long been involved in the arts on campus, and BabsonARTS has been able support these efforts, including TEST (The Empty Space Theater), the Thompson Visiting Poet series, the Global Film Series, and visual arts exhibitions at the Hollister Gallery.

* CSC artists and teachers have offered workshops in voice, movement: improvisation, and public speaking in addition to the already-existing visual arts workshops in ceramics, sculpture, and drawing. All of these workshops build skills that will be directly useful in students' future business careers.

About Commonwealth Shakespeare Company

Commonwealth Shakespeare Company, best known for its annual free performances on Boston Common, is a non-profit organization founded in 1996 dedicated to bringing the works of William Shakespeare in vital and contemporary productions to the people of Boston and to exploring Shakespeare's works with Greater Boston's youth in innovative and creative ways. In addition to the annual Boston Common productions, CSC presents a summer "Tour of the Parks" program that tours Shakespeare-inspired programming designed for families to Boston neighborhood parks. CSC also presents several free play-reading events during the year: American Voices, Shakespeare and Law as well as Shakespeare and Leadership. CSC fulfills its educational mission with actor-training programs for both high school students and pre-professional actors with its Summer Academy. Throughout the year, CSC partners with area high schools and Boys and Girls Clubs to provide in and after-school theater activities to inner-city youth. Recent productions include The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Coriolanus, All's Well That Ends Well (2012 Elliot Norton Award-winner for Best Production, Large Theater), Othello, and The Comedy of Errors.

About Babson College

Babson College is the educator, convener, and thought leader for Entrepreneurship of All Kinds(r). The ranked college for entrepreneurship education, Babson is a dynamic living and learning laboratory where students, faculty, and staff work together to address the real-world problems of business and society. We prepare the entrepreneurial leaders our world needs most: those with strong functional knowledge and the skills and vision to navigate change, accommodate ambiguity, surmount complexity, and motivate teams in a common purpose to make a difference in the world, and have an impact on organizations of all sizes and types. As we have for nearly a half-century, Babson continues to advance Entrepreneurial Thought and Action(r) as the most positive force on the planet for generating sustainable economic and social value. Visit www.babson.edu

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Contact: Michael Chmura, 781-239-4549, [email protected]

SOURCE Babson College

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