Marin Shakespeare Company

Founded in 1990 Marin Shakespeare Company presents three plays each summer at the 600 seat Forest Meadows Amphitheater in San Rafael. Each year 9,000 North Bay residents attend the productions and throughout the year the company delivers in-school, after-school and summer-camp educational programs to another 1,000 students throughout the region. The company also collaborates officials at the San Quentin Correctional Facility in Marin County to teach the works of Shakespeare to twelve inmates and stage a production of their choosing (Much Ado About Nothing in 2008; Romeo and Juliet in 2009) to over 300 fellow prisoners. The company, still led by its founding husband-and-wife artistic-executive director team, has tripled its budget since its first Hewlett Foundation grant in 2000 to $700,000 and is well prepared to ride out turbulent economic conditions with $100,000 cash reserve. With renewed funding the company, one of eleven Shakespeare companies in the region and one of four in the current Performing Arts portfolio, will continue to support equity actor contracts throughout its summer season and support the teaching artists hired into its arts education program despite declining earned-income from school districts cutting back on arts activities.