ABSTRACT
This chapter takes a comment from a Shakespeare North Playhouse promotional video: “To have something called ‘Shakespeare’ on your doorstep; it makes you feel important” as a jumping-off point to explore the potential for inclusion, participation, and empowerment in the education and community work of Shakespeare heritage theatre spaces such as SNP. Drawing on my past experience as a Shakespeare’s Globe education practitioner and research into the social justice potential of Coram Shakespeare Schools Foundation festival, this chapter offers three key guiding concepts to frame this analysis: the space as a dynamic ‘laboratory’ site, pedagogic practice grounded by a sense of ‘ensemble’, and a ‘re-storying’ approach to Shakespeare’s texts. Using interview extracts from past and present members of SNP’s engagement and education team, I then explore the education and community offer of the theatre’s opening season through these three concepts.
