Who we are
Make an EnquiryOur team of professional actors and storytellers perform Shakespeare’s plays for young people in schools and theatres across the country. Every year we perform to 60,000 children in over 500 schools. Our projects have been cited by the Arts Council as an example of excellence in arts education practice.
Since 1988 the Young Shakespeare Company’s acclaimed productions have been seen by over one million school children in thousands of schools throughout the UK. We have also been invited to perform our work for schools in Europe, Kuwait and China.
Each Young Shakespeare Company production is performed by a cast of dynamic professional actors, with a passion for performing Shakespeare for younger audiences.
Our outstanding classically-trained actors are experienced and confident performing to a schools audience and all hold a current enhanced DBS certificate.
Our current productions are directed by Artistic Director Andrew Strafford-Baker, who has been working with the Young Shakespeare Company since 2014. The interactive educational content of the productions is devised by founding directors Sarah Gordon and Christopher Geelan who launched the Young Shakespeare Company in 1988.
Andrew Strafford-Baker
Andrew Strafford-Baker is a theatre director and creative education leader specialising in Theatre for Young Audiences. He holds an MA in Classical Acting from The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. As Associate Director for the Young Shakespeare Company, Andrew has led company productions for over a decade. His directing credits include Macbeth, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo and Juliet, and Twelfth Night, spanning international tours to Kuwait and Gibraltar as well as UK primary and secondary touring. Andrew is also the Co-Founder of Wild Geese Theatre Company, where his directing credits include Boudica! (National Tour) and Sir Gawain of the Round Table (Derby Theatre & National Tour). Beyond the rehearsal room, he has held Associate Artist roles at Derby Theatre and Tramshed Arts, London, as well as strategic positions within the charity sector, including the Leeds Cultural Education Partnership. Andrew also teaches on Saturday mornings at his local theatre, The Junction in Goole.
Sarah Gordon
Sarah has a Master’s Degree in Education and is the author of “Active Approaches To Primary School Shakespeare”(1989). Sarah took part in Dr. Rex Gibson’s ground-breaking “Shakespeare and Schools” project at the Cambridge Institute of Education and has subsequently become the national pioneer of Primary School Shakespeare. She has devised and led workshops and training courses for Education Faculty of Cambridge University, the National Theatre, the English Shakespeare Company, the English National Ballet, the Open Air Theatre Regents Park, the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond, TAG Theatre in Scotland and for Inspectors and Advisors throughout the country
Christopher Geelan
Christopher is a theatre director specialising in making Shakespeare accessible to young audiences. Previous productions adapted and directed for the Young Shakespeare Company include: Macbeth, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Hamlet, The Tempest, Twelfth Night, Much Ado About Nothing and Henry V. His work as a freelance director includes a national tour of Romeo and Juliet for the English Shakespeare Company, open air productions of Henry IV Parts 1 and 2 and The Merry Wives of Windsor for Principal Theatre Company, Measure for Measure and Othello for Theatre Unlimited and ten productions for the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond. Christopher has been a guest lecturer on ‘Shakespeare in Performance’ for the Open University and his educational projects have been featured on BBC and ITV News programmes..