“All the characters were real people. I liked it a lot.”
Mission
Inspired by the vitality, poetry, and humanity of William Shakespeare’s plays, and rising to meet great inequities and barriers in local arts access due to income, zip code, housing status, ability, and identity, Off Road Shakespeare Company creates brave and beautiful theatre productions for non-traditional spaces and artistically underserved communities.
FREE, FOR ALL.
“This is like a dream. Like a good one, and a bad one - because of the kissing and because of the fighting.”
Vision & Values
We believe stories matter.
We know access to them is vital.
We work to to meet our audiences where they are.
We endeavor to be a useful and beautiful part of every community we play with and for.
We are committed to joy and to its equitable redistribution.
We are serious about play and ready to work.
We are dedicated to the development of whimsy and delight.
We are determined to show up with an open heart and a curious mind.
We are passionate about being smart and truthy and generous and brave.
We know that the purpose of playing is to hold a mirror up to nature.
We know that means our company, our work, and our audiences must be a true reflection of the world in all its diversity, complexity, and expressions of persons, identities, experiences, beliefs, stories, circumstances, and abilities.
We know if we can imagine new worlds and better ways of being, serving, and playing together in order to make a Shakespeare play happen, we can do it in the rest of the world too.
We believe that sometimes, to get where you need to go, you’ve got to go off road.
“Imagine seeing a play that I’ve seen several times before and not actually knowing what was coming.”
About Us
Off Road Shakespeare Company is a roving troupe of players, musicians, rabble-rousers, and clowns who are passionate about story, committed to access, curious about community, and serious about play.
We believe people's lives are better- more joyful, thoughtful, whole, and more deeply experienced when they are allowed to experience an abundance of story. And, we think Shakespeare wrote some really good stories.
We believe that good stories matter, and if stories matter for anyone then they matter for everyone. And that means that access to great big worthy stories, written by Shakespeare or otherwise, must not be determined or limited by income, zip code, housing status, identity, ability, or demographic.
Off Road works (and plays) to make the most inventive, accessible, immediate, heart-pounding, whimsy-tickling, side-splitting, thought-provoking, soul-soaring, joy-sparking Shakespeare (and other great big epic good) stories and bring them to life in all kinds of spaces where theatre doesn’t typically happen, for audiences who don’t often feel invited to be part of those stories and spaces that hold them. We do it for free and we are deeply invested in exploring the myriad ways we might be both useful and beautiful contributors to the lives and spaces of all our audiences, in every space and place we encounter them.
We are born of and following in the footsteps of a great tradition of smart and passionate theatre makers across the country who are working to redistribute the wealth of story in more just, equitable, and accessible ways.
Good stories. Played Well. For Free. For All.