Applications due by April 6 and is open to actors, stage managers, and production personnel to hone their craft during TSC’s 2025-26 Season
We are announcing our national call for applications for our third annual Classical Theatre Apprentice Program. This six-month-long Program will begin September 1, 2025, and will run through May 3, 2026.
Candidate applications are due by April 6.
Tennessee Shakespeare Company (TSC) is the Mid-South’s professional, classical theatre now in our 17th 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 and middle careers.
This apprenticeship focuses on immersive career development opportunities. Apprentices are guaranteed to act, teach, or stage manage, or provide production assistance in multiple areas in a variety of shows, including mainstage/touring/schools’ productions during our 18th season.
Our season will be announced later this Spring, but it will include touring Education productions which will likely be Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth (contingent upon receiving NEA project funding historically granted to TSC). The mainstage season will include two additional plays by William Shakespeare, as well as 1-2 classical plays by 20th Century American playwrights, a Southern Literary Salon reading, and our Children’s Literacy Gala.
Apprentices will be on hiatus from work from December 22, 2025, through and including December 28, 2025. Apprentice work-weeks 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 $300.00 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.
Since its founding in 2008, our casting and hiring policies remain committed to diversity and inclusiveness in an effort to reflect Memphis’ community. TSC is an Equal Opportunity Employer.
Program training for performers, supervised by Producing Artistic Director Dan McCleary, will focus on developing the classical actor in areas of voice, body, actor/audience relationship, Shakespeare verse, clowning, dance/fight, auditioning, and the business of remaining employed as a theatre actor. Training will include regular warm-ups, master classes, mock auditions, and ongoing specialty training classes with TSC teaching and artistic staff.
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 available for Apprentices and will include a range of possibilities from shadowing to running responsibilities.
“TSC’s Apprentice Program is a whirlwind of ecstatic triumph, deep challenges, and artistic community,” says Hadley Evans Nash, a member of TSC’s inaugural Classical Theatre Apprentice Company. “The days can be long, but the results are beyond rewarding. Getting to work with local youth was exciting and inspiring. I came out of this Apprentice Program with a new control over my voice, a new confidence in myself as a theatre professional, and with a cohort of collaborators.”
Initial applications for actor candidates:
Please submit resume, headshot, two to three references, 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 personnel candidates:
Please submit resume 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 an applicant’s passion for classical theatre, awareness of TSC’s work and its mission, how previous training has prepared them for an immersive professional theatre experience, and their relationship to commitment, compassion, discipline, generosity of spirit, and courage in the theatre.
All applicants will be made aware of initial decisions by April 9. If invited to proceed in the application process, applicants then will submit videos/interviews by April 23. Final decisions will be communicated by TSC to all applicants by May 12.
For more information, please visit our site here.
Season 17 Sponsors
TSC’s generous sponsors of its season, productions, and Education and Outreach Program include FedEx, International Paper, Arts Midwest, ARTSmemphis, Tennessee Arts Commission, the National Endowment for the Arts, Mid-America Arts Alliance, Independent Bank, Evans Petree PC, First Horizon Foundation through an ArtsFirst grant, AutoZone, Nancy R. Copp, Pat and Ernest Kelly Anne and Mike Keeney, J. Walker Sims and the Sims Family Charitable Trust, Deborah Dunklin Tipton, Pete Pranica, Edward and Gloria Felsenthal, 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.
