About Us

Shakespeare Is For Everybody!

The Frog & Peach Theatre Company was founded by members of The Actors Studio, actors and directors with a few burning questions:

• How come so many of our peers are so insecure about Shakespeare?
• Who started the rumor that Shakespeare equals rocket science?
• Why did people with the most to gain from thrilling classical theatre usually have the least access to it?

We asked our friends, neighbors, and colleagues. We asked doormen and doctors. We asked our students and our teachers.

Some said they were afraid they wouldn't understand the language, and feel foolish.

Others suspected that Shakespeare's work could never resonate in the lives of modern, regular people.

Many said they'd love to have a place where they could see quality Shakespeare performed year-round, but felt priced out of the cultural conversation.

So, we thought: what if we could perform Shakespeare’s plays the way we’d always wanted to see them: beautifully acted, respectful to the text, but with a cinematic pace that could sweep modern audiences to new worlds of fun and entertainment?

What if we carefully edited the plays to retain the verse but without the repeated passages and obscure, archaic references?

What if we created a theatre so welcoming that everyone felt at home, regardless of income or diploma?

Using a dangerous mix of method training, voracious text analysis and unembarrassed intimacy with the audience, we knew we could turn normal people on to the beauty, immediacy, and modernity of the plays.

This simple approach has brought Frog & Peach a great deal of acclaim, attracting audiences from all five boroughs and beyond.

Over the years, Frog & Peach has grown from a small raucous troupe into one of New York's most respected Shakespearean ensembles, with one of the most diverse audiences found anywhere.

And even though we can’t do all our shows for free anymore, we make sure a good portion of seats are free or deeply discounted for special guests: the young, the less affluent, and the elderly in our community who might otherwise never see a play.

Shakespeare has a lot of important things to say about politics and sex and family and liars. He has a lot to say about faith and regret and war.

One special message in each of Shakespeare’s plays is that we are all in this together, and his words are like a balm to the cynicism and resentment of the modern world.

Our beautiful city, so divided by have and have-not, so hurting and so skeptical about what light there is to come, has a real need for this special nourishment.

At Frog & Peach, it’s our pleasure and privilege to provide that nourishment in a fun and thrilling way.