Tina Packer
Tina Packer is the founding artistic director of Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, Massachusetts. She has directed most of Shakespeare’s plays, acted in seven (never when directing), and taught at over thirty colleges in the U.S., including Harvard, M.I.T., and NYU. At Columbia, she taught in the M.B.A. program, resulting in her piece, Power Plays: Shakespeare’s Lessons in Leadership and Management; she wrote Tales from Shakespeare, recipient of the Parent’s Gold Medal Award.
She began her career at the Royal Shakespeare Company and came to the U.S. in 1974 to research the visceral roots of Elizabethan theater with five master teachers. She has explored the relationship of mind, body, sacred texts, stand-up comedy, voice, and actor–audience relationship. She has six honorary degrees (which gives her great pleasure as she never went to regular college). Tina has also been the subject of TV and film specials: Sex, Violence & Poetry, produced by WGBH, and Brush Up Your Shakespeare, an hour-long concert special in partnership with the Boston Pops and Boston Philharmonic Orchestra on PBS.
