National call for applications by April 11 is open for six actors, stage managers, and production personnel to hone their craft during TSC’s 2024-25 Season

We are announcing our call for applications for our second annual Classical Theatre Apprentice Program. This six-month-long Program will begin September 2, 2024, and will run through March 7, 2025. Candidate applications are due by April 11.

Tennessee Shakespeare Company is the Mid-South’s professional, classical theatre now in our 16th season in Memphis.

The Classical Theatre Apprentice Program at TSC is focused on experiential, classical stage performance/stage management/production training and work designed to support emerging theatre professionals as they launch and sustain their early/mid careers. This apprenticeship focuses on immersive career development opportunities. Apprentices are guaranteed to act and teach, stage manage, or provide production assistance in multiple areas in a variety of shows, including mainstage productions. 

Our 17th season will be announced later this Spring but will include Education touring productions of Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet.  The performance season will include four to five productions, at least two of which will include Apprentices.

Apprentices will be on hiatus from work from December 23, 2024, through and including January 5, 2025.  Apprentice work-weeks (a total of 25) will consist of approximately 40 hours per work-week, on average, and will include at least one day off per week.

Apprentices will be hired as full-time employees of TSC and will earn a salary of $290.00 per week.  Apprentices will be responsible for all costs associated with living in the Memphis area for the duration of the apprenticeship.  These costs include, but are not limited to, round-trip transportation from primary residence to Memphis; in-town Memphis transportation when not in a TSC vehicle; meals; housing.  If Apprentices use their own vehicle for TSC-related work, they will be reimbursed.  

TSC and our casting and hiring policies are committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion; and provide equal opportunity to all candidates.  

Program training for performers, supervised by Producing Artistic Director Dan McCleary, will focus on developing the classical actor in areas of voice, movement, actor-audience relationship, structure of Shakespeare’s verse, clowning, dance and fight, auditioning, and the business of marketing oneself as a working actor.  Training will include master classes, mock auditions, ongoing specialty training classes with TSC teaching and artistic staff, and classes with visiting artists. 

Program training for stage managers and technicians will be supervised by TSC Production Manager Jeremy Fisher, with additional management provided by TSC’s production stage manager.  Opportunities to train and work in areas of management, design, lighting, sound, scenic/props, costumes, and all technical aspects will be customized for each Apprentice and will include a range of possibilities from shadowing to running responsibilities.

Initial applications for actor candidates: please submit resume, headshot, and a letter of interest to Dan McCleary at danmccleary@tnshakespeare.org.  Candidates may then be invited to a virtual video audition.

Initial applications for stage manager/production candidates: please submit resume and any website resource, and a letter of interest to Dan McCleary at danmccleary@tnshakespeare.org.  Candidates may then be invited to a virtual interview.

All letters of interest should address a candidate’s passion for classical theatre, awareness of TSC’s work and our mission, how previous training has prepared them for an immersive professional theatre experience, and their relationship to commitment, compassion, generosity of spirit, and courage in the theatre. 

All applicants will be made aware of initial decisions by April 14.  If invited to proceed in the application process, applicants will submit videos/interviews by May 6.  Final decisions will be communicated by TSC to all applicants by May 23.  

For more information, please visit our site here. 

Season 16 Sponsors and Partners

TSC’s generous sponsors of our season, productions, and Education and Outreach Program include FedEx, International Paper, Arts Midwest, ARTSmemphis, Tennessee Arts Commission, Independent Bank, Evans Petree PC, First Horizon Foundation through an ArtsFirst grant, AutoZone, Nancy R. Copp, Kathryn and Jim Gilliland, Anne and Mike Keeney, Pat and Ernest Kelly, Dorothy O. Kirsch, J. Walker Sims and the Sims Family Charitable Trust, the Barbara B. Apperson Angel Fund, the family of Owen and Margaret Wellford Tabor, the Dunbar Abston Fund for Sustainable Excellence, and the Jack Jones Children’s Literacy Fund.

TSC’s season is funded under a Grant Contract with the State of Tennessee; and is being supported, in whole or in part, by federal award number SLFRP5534, awarded to the State of Tennessee by the U.S. Department of Treasury.

TSC’s programming and outreach partners include Bartlett Performing Arts Center, Benjamin Hooks Public Library Friends, Cities of Bartlett and Collierville and Memphis, Davies Manor, Dixon Gallery & Gardens, Memphis Juvenile Justice System, Memphis V.A. Medical Center, Overton Park Shell, Overton Square, Shelby County Election Commission, Shelby County Schools, St. George’s Episcopal Church, University of Memphis’ Department of Theatre & Dance, Wiseacre Brewery, WKNO Radio (91.1 FM Memphis), and Woodlawn.