Our Mission
- To facilitate the growth of the female artist in a challenging, supportive, playful, and creative environment.
- To create a diverse company of women where many worlds, cultures, backgrounds and ideas are represented as we explore the breadth and depth of the human condition.
- To bring Shakespeare to underserved communities and develop our passion for theatre not only as an art form, but also as an educational tool.
- To foster emerging female playwrights and voices in conjunction with exploring the theatrical masterpieces of William Shakespeare.
About Us
Manhattan Shakespeare Project is a bright new venture into the wonderful world of Shakespeare. We are graduate students based in the Columbia University theatre community, but our company also includes many professional women from all backgrounds.
Currently we are exploring how we can re-envision Shakespeare’s works to communicate to new generations, and new communities. We want to create vital and currently viable theatre focusing on gender constructs. What does it mean to use an all-female cast with scripts and characters that were originally written for all-male casts?
We have also created a laboratory for emerging female playwrights, fostering these new voices in the theatre world. Our first project is to produce a festival of readings leading to fully realized productions enabling the playwrights to hear and see their words off the page and develop their voice. This project is going up this coming fall: Emerging Female Voices Playwright's Fest.
For the Future
Our long term future plans include establishing an educational out-reach program which will enable us to bring classes and Shakespeare to all types of learning institutions, where students can take classes that enhance their communication skills, and teach them how to be more confident human beings capable of expressing themselves in public arenas.
We want to employ teaching artists of all backgrounds.
We want to create a not-for-profit company able to financially support itself and provide livable salaries for all employed.
As we embark on this fabulous adventure we invite you to participate in the creation! Contact us for how you can be involved, come see our shows, and pass the word onto friends!
Thanks so much!
MSP Team
Sarah Eismann
Founder, Artistic Director
