Tina Packer: Onstage

OLLI at BCC Performing Arts Initiative Presents:

The First Nancy Vale Memorial Talk

Tina Packer: Onstage

Friday, December 15, 2023
at 1 p.m. EST

Hybrid: In-person at Berkshire Community College and also via Zoom

Free & open to all

In-person registration closed

Tina Packer is the founding artistic director of Shakespeare & Company.

Born in England, Tina was trained at Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, performed in regional theatre, was an Associate Artist at the Royal Shakespeare Company, played in television series for the BBC, arrived in the U.S. in 1974. She had a Ford Foundation Travel and Study to research the visceral roots of Shakespeare’s plays, traveled to India, Israel, Italy and the U.S. She co-founded Shakespeare & Company in 1978 and has worked for the Company ever since! She has directed all of Shakespeare’s plays, acted in eight of them (never when directing) and taught the whole canon at over thirty colleges, including Harvard, M.I.T. and NYU. At Columbia University, she taught in the M.B.A. program for four years, resulting in the publication of Power Plays: Shakespeare’s Lessons in Leadership and Management with Deming Professor John Whitney for Simon and Schuster. For Scholastic, she wrote Tales from Shakespeare, a children’s book and recipient of the Parent’s Gold Medal Award. Most recently, Tina wrote with Bella Merlin Shakespeare & Company When Action is Eloquence, published by Routledge, a history of the Company, including insights into its unique approaches to Performance.  Tina’s book Women of Will was published by Knopf and she has been performing Women of Will with Nigel Gore, in New York, Mexico, England, The Hague, China, and across the US. She’s the recipient of numerous awards and honorary degrees, including the Commonwealth Award.

Allyn Burrows, Artistic Director, President of the Board of Trustees, Shakespeare & Company will introduce and interview Ms. Packer.

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This lecture is supported through the generous philanthropy of Nancy and Michael Vale, whose bequest established the Michael and Nancy Vale Performing Arts Program at OLLI at Berkshire Community College. This endowed fund supports theater-based OLLI programming. 

Nancy Vale taught theatre and drama-related courses for OLLI and was a founding member of the OLLI Performing Arts Initiative. For 10 years Nancy and Naomi Spatz co-hosted the popular  Berkshire Previews course where regional artistic directors presented their seasons and critics their views. 

Nancy received her MFA from Northwestern University, where she was awarded an acting fellowship and met her husband Michael while acting off-Broadway. Nancy continued performing and teaching when they moved to the Berkshires, while co-owning The Apple Tree Inn in Lenox and renovating and reopening the former Alice's Restaurant in Stockbridge as an inn and restaurant. Nancy Vale's local credits include Women at the Wheel, Bliss Eternal, Rites of Passage, The Other Woman, and SEVEN, the documentary play by seven playwrights about women's rights. In 2018, at age 86, Nancy was thrilled to appear in a production of The Vagina Monologues in Pittsfield.