The Royal Shakespeare Theatre and the Swan Theatre in Stratford upon are world renowned theatres well established and famous for there respective plays and productions of William Shakespeare’s plays from Macbeth through to A Midsummer’s Night Dream and other productions.

With the Theatre now set to re-open this April 2011 following a major refurbishment programme over 2010

But the plays and productions of William Shakespeare are world known and there are other very famous theatres around the world that stage Shakespeare’s plays one of these theatres is the Chicago Shakespeare on Navy Pier Theatre.

Respectively located in the heart of the Famous windy city of Chicago the theatre is located at Navy Pier a 50 acre site of gardens and shops, restaurants and parks the promenade is a very popular place for visitors and is said to be the most visited site in the Midwest and the pier stretches from downtown Chicago to Lake Michigan. The Theatre  opened its new state of the art facility located on the navy pier back in 1999 at a cost of some $24miiilon.The theatre has received a very famous endorsement from Sir Peter Hall the founder of the RSC in Stratford upon Avon as he commented that it was one of the best Shakespeare places in the world.

Just as the refurbishment at the RSC in Stratford which involved the building of a new thrust stage so audiences could be nearer to the performing artists the Theatre in Chicago also took heed of this and also implemented this idea into its new theatre so the new 500 seating auditorium known as the Jentes family auditorium gives the same effect by providing an immediate and intimate relationship between the audience and the actors on stage via three different seating areas around the stage.

You can enter the theatre from Dock street which is directly located on Navy Pier and once inside the theatre provides fantastic views of the lake and the Chicago skyline from its magnificent glass frontage which extends on to every level.

The theatre received the prestigious regional theatre Tony award back in 2008 and it offers a broad spectrum of engaging plays and productions to suit people from all walks of life but as you would expect concentrating on the Shakespeare plays is of prime importance with productions like Romeo and Juliet during the 2010 season and this year” As You Like It” during March. The CST are dedicated to keeping the plays as original as possible and therefore preserving the integrity of the language but at the same time trying to make the productions understandable to an modern American audience.

The Chicago Shakespeare Theatre has a very busy season each year with a 48 week programme of some 600 performances the company is also the largest employer of Chicago actors and each year the Theatre attracts some 225,000 visitors to its plays and performances. The theatre also incorporates a Team Shakespeare which is responsible for staging abridged versions of Shakespeare’s plays. These plays are more family orientated and include interactive music concerts and fairy tales and are more family friendly thus providing entertainment sights and sounds for the thousands of families that visit the Theatre each year and providing an insight into the classics and the performing arts for the younger generation like the Short Shakespeare Macbeth showing between January and March this year.

As with the RSC in Stratford upon Avon which run a Artists Development Programme (ADP) which provides training and development for aspiring actors and helps with there careers and progression into acting companies(RSC helped 118 actors in the 2009/2010 season) by providing guidance and training with aspect to movement and voice skills to puppetry and mask work the CST also has a similar programme in place by holding Open door days at the Theatre so students can get more of an insight into the plays and how they are produced to a Arts Leadership Program which is in partnership with the Theatre School De Paul University.

The aim of this programme is to provide full time employment at the CST combined with a 2yr Masters Fine Arts Degree incorporating coursework. So therefore anyone considering taking this course gets the best of both worlds with actual real world training at the CST combined with classroom training that can be directly applied when back at the CST. The CST to further enhance the programme hold a series of workshops and discussions and lectures that both teachers of the arts and students can attend all year round the programme is called Sharing the Worlds Stage these events allow Chicago artists to engage in dialogue and witness and get involved with some of the world top theatre practitioners and there respective productions.

The work of Shakespeare has inspired many theatres around the world and the Chicago Shakespeare Navy Pier Theatre is a fantastic and inspiring example for all fans of the Great Bard.