Tina Packer, founding artistic director of Shakespeare & Company, dies at 87
She was not on the list.
On Friday, Tina Packer, Shakespeare & Company’s founding artistic director, died at age 87.
Packer co-founded the organization in 1978 with a cadre of theater artists who helped renovate The Mount, its first home and the former residence of author Edith Wharton. She remained in that role through 2009, overseeing the company's transition into its current home on Kemble Street in 2000. She continued to direct and teach until her death.
"Tina affected everyone she encountered with her
warmth, generosity, wit, and insatiable curiosity," Shakespeare &
Company Artistic Director Allyn Burrows said. "She delighted in people’s
stories, and reached into their hearts with tender humanity. The world was her
stage, and she furthered the Berkshires as a destination for the imagination.
Tina had so much life in her that it’s hard to think of it going anywhere but
to be held in all of us.”
Packer died at 7:05 p.m. at Berkshire Medical Center, Shakespeare & Company spokesperson Jaclyn Stevenson told The Eagle.
Packer, a native of England and a former member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, traveled to the U.S. in the 1970s "with the idea of creating a theater company that merged the power suits of British actors and American actors: the spoken word and the physical body," according to Shakespeare & Company. The Eagle reported that the idea came to her in 1974, when she received a one-year grant to form a group of English and Shakespearean actors, after which she sought to bring together the two nationalities and their different acting methods.
"What happened was my whole thinking really took off
when I got to America," she told The Eagle in 1978. "The openness of
mind and the Americans' willingness to experiment was exciting."
Packer directed most of Shakespeare’s plays, acted in seven, and taught the entire canon at multiple colleges and universities, including Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Columbia University, where she taught its MBA program for four years. She is the author of the children’s book Tales from Shakespeare, which won a Parents’ Gold Medal Award, and received six honorary degrees. She was the 1999–2000 arts recipient of the Commonwealth Award, the state’s most prestigious cultural recognition.
"Her indelible creativity will be carried forward by countless artists, students, colleagues, admirers, and friends, and her influence on the world of Shakespeare will be enduring," a statement from Shakespeare & Company reads.
Information regarding memorial services will be shared in
the coming days.
Educated at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, she
originally worked as an actress, starring in the BBC television serial David
Copperfield. After she quit acting and became a stage director in the United
States, she founded the Shakespearean theatre company Shakespeare &
Company, serving as its artistic director from its second foundation in 1978
until 2009.
Filmography
Film
Year Title Role Notes
1967 Two a Penny Gladys Feature
film
1970 Praise Marx and
Pass the Ammunition Air Hostess Feature film
Television
Year Title Role Notes
1959 It's Saturday
Night 1 episode
1964 No Hiding Place Ann Episode:
"Real Class"
Thursday Theatre 1st
Girl Episode: "Point of
Departure"
1965 The Avengers Suzanne (uncredited) Episode: "Dial a Deadly Number"
1966 David
Copperfield Dora Spenlow 8 episodes
1968 Doctor Who Anne Travers 6
episodes, "The Web of Fear"
Boy Meets Girl Sister
Tannis March Episode: "The
Enchanted Shore"
1972 Crime of
Passion Angela Braque Episode: "Jean-Paul"
2013 Charlie Rose Self — Guest 1
episode
Awards and nominations
Year Award Category Nominated
work Result
1994 Guggenheim
Fellowship Won
2019 Shakespeare
Theatre Association Lifetime
Achievement Award Won
No comments:
Post a Comment