Featuring more Classical and Shakespeare Titles than any Professional, Regional Theatre in the U.S., including the Expansion of our Free Shakespeare Shout-Out Series and our Introduction of Sherlock Holmes and a special Christmas in Wales

We are announcing our expanded 18th performance season in Memphis featuring two productions in our Free Shout-Out Shakespeare Series (Much Ado About Nothing in the fall, and Romeo and Juliet in the spring), fresh adaptations of A Child’s Christmas in Wales and The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle featuring Sherlock Holmes, a 1940s production of The Taming of the Shrew with music, a new St. Patrick’s Day Literary Salon featuring Lady Gregory and the cultural revival of Ireland, and a new Classical Comedies and Cocktails Reading Series featuring Tartuffe by Moliére, The Three Sisters by Chekhov, and Blithe Spirit by Noël Coward.

In addition to our expanded free performances in our popular outdoor Shout-Out Series, TSC again will offer Free Will Kids Nights for every Friday night performance on its Tabor Stage.  This offer provides free admission to up to four children 17 years and younger when they are accompanied by at least one paying adult guardian.

The annual Children’s Literacy Gala, which this past season featured Tony Award nominee Joshua Henry (star of Hamilton and the upcoming Ragtime on Broadway), will take our Tabor Stage on Saturday, April 11, 2026. 

The Gala, which annually raises funds to support the Education and Outreach Program, will be crucial this season as we recently lost all of its traditional grants made by the National Endowment for the Arts for its innovative offerings to children (The Macbeth Initiative and The Romeo and Juliet Project), Memphis military veterans at the VA Hospital (Feast of Crispian-South), and teenagers in Memphis detention centers (Juvenile Justice and Poetic Justice).  The sudden loss of these grants represents a reduction of nearly $100,000 in funds and matching funds that make these programs possible and generate nearly 20,000 points of contact between Shakespeare and the wide populations of TSC’s communities.

Committed to classical arts innovation in the United States, we remain the State’s only permanently-based, professional, classical theatre.  Bolstered by a generous Board of Directors, increased funding from ARTSmemphis and the Tennessee Arts Commission, corporate support from FedEx, Evans Petree PC, Independent Bank, AutoZone, First Horizon Foundation, Shakespeare Fund of Theater League of Kansas City, and more than 400 individual donors, TSC and Producing Artistic Director Dan McCleary remain committed to artistic excellence, teaching innovation, and social betterment through the plays of William Shakespeare and classical writers.

We believe that the plays of William Shakespeare and classical theatre are for everyone; that the arts must move closer to the center of every Tennessee child’s formal education; and that the State needs the poetry, collaboration, and healing truths of the world’s finest writers and artists.

“Despite the tragic loss of traditional NEA grants, TSC will not be paused in our programming, nor will we minimize the importance of Shakespeare’s plays being acted on local stages — whether traditional or non-traditional, in school cafeterias or in detention centers, or in the VA Hospital or on the Memphis riverbank,” says McCleary, TSC’s founder. “We are strategically increasing our offerings of plays by Shakespeare or classical writers; and we are committed to finding ways to maintain our extensive Education and Outreach programming.  Shakespeare the revolutionary teaches us how the world indeed revolves and returns.  We will continue to fight for TSC’s mission, for our audiences, and for each community in our county.”

Across 17 seasons, we have achieved over 720,000 points of contact through 75 productions in 40 community venues; educated over 150,000 students in 130 schools; served the health needs of more than 1,100 Veterans at the Memphis V.A. Medical Center; and brought Shakespeare and creative writing to 550 youths in three Memphis detention centers.

TSC this season returns our third annual Classical Theatre Apprentice Program for early-career professionals from around the country as they continue their classical training with our professional teachers, actors, and stage managers for seven months while in residency in Memphis.

The 2025-26 Performance Season

The victorious soldiers returning to Messina only thought they were laying down their arms.  Head-strong Benedick and his men come heart-to-heart with the witty Beatrice and her women in the Italian countryside for a sun-dappled battle of romance, which finds peace only when the village “Ass” is conscripted.  Ideal for the outdoors, families, and picnics, Shakespeare’s romantic comedy plays gleefully in 90 minutes without intermission.

Performance schedule:
Collierville Town Square’s Train Depot; no reservations required
Saturday, September 27 at 7:00 pm

TSC’s Tabor Stage; half-price admission charged; reserve seats with TSC’s Box Office
Sunday, September 28 at 3:00 pm

St. George’s Church, 2425 S. Germantown Road; no reservations required
Friday, October 3 at 7:00 pm

Reverie, 23660 TN-HWY 57, LaGrange, TN; no reservations required
Saturday, October 4 at 4:00 pm

Dixon Gallery & Gardens; no reservations required
Sunday, October 5 at 3:00 pm

Wiseacre Brewery, 2783 Broad Avenue; no reservations required
Thursday, October 9 at 7:00 pm

Bartlett Performing Arts Center (lakeside); no reservations required
Friday, October 10 at 7:00 pm

Raleigh Library, 3452 Austin Peay Highway; no reservations required
Saturday, October 11 at 3:00 pm

Davies Manor, 9336 Davies Plantation Road, Bartlett; no reservations required
Sunday, October 12 at 4:00 pm

Overton Square’s Chimes Square Amphitheatre; no reservations required
Friday, October 17 at 7:00 pm

Tom Lee Park, Huling Avenue entrance; no reservations required
Saturday, October 18 at 4:00 pm

Overton Park Shell; no reservations required
Sunday, October 19 at 5:00 pm

THE THREE SISTERS (1900) by Anton Chekhov: Sunday, November 2 at 3:00 pm
TARTUFFE by Moliére (1664): Sunday, November 9 at 3:00 pm
BLITHE SPIRIT by Noël Coward (1941): Sunday, November 16 at 3:00 pm

Join some of your favorite TSC actors for a breezy, cocktail-enhanced experience of three of the world’s most enduring comedies.  You will enjoy intimate readings of Chekhov’s delightfully existential hunger for life’s meaning without repast, Moliere’s audaciously-rhyming satire of religious hokum and secular pretension, and Coward’s sophisticated farce launched by a surprising séance that results in one man’s two wives battling it out between this world and the next.

Join us for two one-act plays together during Christmas Gems! Adapted from one of the greatest storytellers of the 20^th Century, A Child’s Christmas in Wales is a modern classic sure to enchant all ages in this new production that captures youthful memories of a magical time of falling snow, a frozen sea, family, and…presents!  And in a topsy-turvy adventure featuring a not-quite-golden Christmas goose, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are at their merriest and most forgiving in Sir Conan Doyle’s sole homage to the spirit of the holiday season — with a gem of a discovery.

On Valentine’s Day night during World War II, a Manhattan radio station decides at the last minute it would be a good national morale-booster to replace regularly scheduled programming with a live performance of Shakespeare’s ribald love story – all with its acting company that thought it had been released for the night.  Audiences will spy the backstage noir version of Shakespeare’s inducement to the wooing Kate-and-Petruchio comedy; and then see the on-air performance, which the rest of the world will only hear (thank goodness).  With the music and songs of Rodgers and Hart, Sinatra, and Crosby.

Celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with music, Irish dancing, cocktails, and the poetic verse that inspired Ireland’s literary revival, and spurred its fight for independence.  Lady Augusta Gregory, co-founder of the Irish Literary Theatre and the Abbey Theatre, was the turn-of-the-century’s influential dramatist and poet who supported the likes of W.B. Yeats, J.M. Synge, Robert Browning, Lord Tennyson, and Henry James.  “There are no strangers here; Only friends you haven’t yet met.”

Do you know why the Capulets and Montagues are fighting?  Nobody else does either.  Who must be sacrificed to stop the violence?  Shakespeare’s story begins as one of his great comedies but ends in perhaps his gravest tragedy.  Laced with sword fights, dancing, timeless poetry, and the world’s most famous young couple, Romeo and Juliet outdoors is a theatrical event not to be missed – or learned.  This production plays without intermission in 90 minutes.  Families and picnics are welcome.

TSC’s Tabor Stage; half-price admission charged; reserve seats with TSC’s Box Office
Saturday, February 28 at 4:00 pm

TSC’s Tabor Stage; half-price admission charged; reserve seats with TSC’s Box Office
Thursday, March 19 at 7:00 pm

Friday, March 20 at 7:00 pm:	Overton Square 2100 Trimble Place, Memphis
Saturday, March 21 at 6:00 pm:	Elmwood Cemetery 824 S. Dudley St., Memphis Tickets required; purchase before the performance online here or on-site the evening of the performance.
Sunday, March 22 at 3:00 pm:	Dixon Gallery & Gardens 4339 Park Avenue, Memphis
Saturday, March 28 at 1:00 pm:	Raleigh Library 3452 Austin Peay Hwy, Memphis
Saturday, March 28 at 7:00 pm:	Collierville Town Square Historic Train Depot 125 N. Rowlett St., Collierville
Sunday, March 29 at 3:00 pm:	Hillwood at Davies Manor 3570 Davieshire Drive, Bartlett

At our annual party, guests can savor an international menu of buffet tables, open bars, a one-time-only performance, fun auctions, and the presentation of our fourth annual Teacher of the Year Award.  Guests help us raise over $200,000 toward our Education and Outreach Programs, which provides nearly 20,000 points of contact with Shelby County students, detained teens, military veterans, and underserved communities. 

EDUCATION AND OUTREACH PROGRAMS
Funded in part by FedEx, Tennessee Arts Commission, ARTSmemphis, Independent Bank, AutoZone, First Horizon Foundation, TSC’s Barbara B. Apperson Angel Fund, and TSC’s Jack Jones Children’s Literacy Fund.

The Romeo and Juliet Project: The only program of its kind in the nation, in which TSC’s resident teacher-artists rehearse 9^th-graders into an appreciation that violence is not the answer to life’s complexities.

The Macbeth Initiative: This singular program for 12^th-graders uses the great tragedy to explore personal ethical issues such as ambition and power. 

Juvenile Justice Program: inspiring adolescents’ life-changes upon release from detainment through Shakespeare and our Poetic Justice Summer Camp.  One of the few such programs in the nation.

Feast of Crispian-South: TSC is the only theatre in the nation with a program joined officially with the V.A. Medical Center to prepare our heroes in the PTSD and chemical dependency wards to re-enter the world with health and all they deserve.

Summer Shakespeare Camps and Adult Theatre Classes

Elementary/Middle/High School Playshops and Residencies

Box Office

Purchase tickets online here or by calling (901) 759-0604.  Open Tuesday-Friday from 9:00 am – 5:00 pm, and one hour prior to curtain.  TSC is located at 7950 Trinity Road, Memphis, TN 38018-6297.                                                                                         

The Free Shout-Out Shakespeare Series productions of Much Ado About Nothing and Romeo and Juliet are free of charge, do not require reservations/tickets, and perform outdoors in multiple off-site venues.  Three added performances of the plays will perform inside on TSC’s Tabor Stage for half-off admission at $22 (Students $10/Seniors $15).

Christmas Gems and The Taming of the Shrew Preview performance tickets are $22.  All other performances are $44 (Students $24/Seniors $39).  Fridays for Christmas Gems and The Taming of the Shrew are FREE WILL KIDS’ NIGHTS: up to 4 children 17 years and younger may attend for free when accompanied by at least one, full-price-paying Adult guardian; while seats last. Free Will Kids’ Night tickets must be purchased through the Box Office either via phone at (901) 759-0604 or in-person.     

St. Patrick’s Day Literary Salon: Under an Irish Moon and the Classical Comedies & Cocktails Reading Series tickets are $29 (Students $22/Seniors $26). 

The Children’s Literacy Gala single tickets are $150, with 8-ticket Platinum/6-ticket Gold/4-ticket Silver Table Sponsorships available with tiered benefits.  Early Bird single tickets at $125 are available through March 1, 2026.  Please contact Stephanie Shine for details at (901) 759-0604. 

No refunds/exchanges. House opens 30 minutes prior to curtain.  Credit Card charges require a $2.00 per-ticket fee.  Casts and schedules are subject to change with notice.  Free parking/covered drop-off are available at TSC.

Season 18 Sponsors

TSC’s generous sponsors of our season, productions, and Education and Outreach Program include FedEx, ARTSmemphis, Tennessee Arts Commission, James R. Humphreys, Nancy R. Copp, Evans Petree PC, Pat and Ernest Kelly, J. Walker Sims and the Sims Family Charitable Trust, Kathryn and Jim Gilliland, Anne and Mike Keeney, Independent Bank, Pete Pranica, First Horizon Foundation through an ArtsFirst grant, AutoZone, the Dunbar Abston Fund for Sustainable Excellence, the Barbara B. Apperson Angel Fund, and the Jack Jones Children’s Literacy Fund.  TSC’s season is funded under a Grant Contract with the State of Tennessee.