The Festive Remembrance of Shakespeare: A Comparative Study of the Mission, Identity, and Rhetoric of Three American Shakespeare Companies

Much has been written over the years on the collective memory of Shakespeare and how it continues to be perpetuated centuries after his death, even in places such as America, to which he had no direct connection. Most recently, the intersection of performance studies and memory studies has afforded theatre historians the opportunity to reevaluate the impact of performance on the collective memory of Shakespeare by acknowledging that the embodied performance of a text is no less important than its written words. This dissertation’s examination of three American Shakespeare companies -- Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, Massachusetts, the Three Rivers Shakespeare Festival in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and the American Shakespeare Center in Staunton, Virginia -- explores the shifting sands of this intersection. Relying on contemporary theories regarding the inherently social process of memory, this examination posits that the performances of these companies both partake of and constitute commemorations of Shakespeare. The institutional identity of each company is so integral to the performances they produce that the rhetoric and graphics used by these companies in their marketing and promotional materials, are, like the performances themselves, capable of affecting and sustaining the collective memory of Shakespeare. In case studies of each institution, I examine the particular bond these companies had to the community in which they performed and the ways that each became intimately entwined in the cultural life of that community, pointing to the ways in which their promotional rhetoric and general production aesthetic is directly related to their ideas about how Shakespeare should be remembered and the distinct target audience they hope to attract.