The Michigan Shakespeare Festival is a nonprofit professional theatre founded in 1995 and originally named the Jackson Shakespeare Festival. The event was held outdoors in the summer at Jackson’s Ella Sharp Park until 2004, when it moved indoors to the Potter Center at Jackson Community College. Since its inception, the summer festival has entertained more than 40,000 people of all ages. Now in its 17th season, the Festival has grown from two performances to 23 and from one week to a four-week season during July and August and additional performances in the spring and summer in high schools, libraries and youth camps.

In 1997, the Festival was renamed the Michigan Shakespeare Festival to reflect its ever-increasing popularity and affiliation with the University of Michigan Department of Theatre and Drama. Members of Actors’ Equity Association were added in 1999, making the event the only fully professional Shakespeare company in the state.

The Festival’s growing reputation as a regional classical theatre led then-Gov. Jennifer Granholm and the Michigan Senate to designate it “The Official Shakespeare Festival of the State of Michigan” in 2003.

Festival organizers added a non-Shakespeare production to its schedule beginning in 2009, and, under the direction of new Artistic Director Janice L. Blixt, expanded its educational outreach program in 2010 to include performances of Romeo and Juliet and expanded its monologue contest for high school students. Also in 2010, a production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was featured at elementary schools, libraries, recreation centers, and the University of Michigan’s C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital.

This year, the Festival’s board of directors approved a dramatically expanded education outreach program as part of a three-year plan to add growth and stability to the organization. As a result, more than 10,000 high school students will enjoy a performance of the Festival’s ShortShakes Tour.