R. John Roberts as Friar Lawrence in ROMEO AND JULIET (2004).
Shakespeare at Notre Dame
Shakespeare at Notre Dame is a program that recognizes the centrality of the study of Shakespeare in humanistic pedagogy at the University of Notre Dame. Shakespeare is the world's greatest dramatist, his work profoundly informed by Christianity, and therefore forms a part of the mission of Notre Dame as a Catholic university, bringing together humanist study and the performing arts in the exploration of drama in a Christian context.
Shakespeare at Notre Dame consists of the McMeel Family Chair in Shakespeare Studies, Actors from the London Stage and the Notre Dame Shakespeare Festival.
The mission of Shakespeare at Notre Dame is to establish Notre Dame nationally and internationally as a center for the study of Shakespeare in performance. The programs seeks to: (a) provide its undergraduates and graduates, the local community of South Bend and the wider region with opportunities to see Shakespeare productions, both professional and student, of the highest possible quality; (b) provide students with regular opportunities to perform Shakespeare both independent of and in collaboration with professional performers and directors, in order to provide students with a full range of experience of amateur and professional production in the course of the academic year; (c) educate students in the pleasures of watching Shakespeare (on stage and on film) so as to inculcate a life-time habit of seeing Shakespeare in performance; (d) provide courses at an undergraduate level and beyond, for students in all years of study and from the widest possible range of disciplines, to explore Shakespeare in performance; (e) support the full range of courses studying Shakespeare throughout the University; (f) provide at a master's and doctoral level, through MA/MFA and PhD courses, the opportunity for students to train both as scholar-critics and as theatre-workers through the study of Shakespeare in performance; and (g) support collection development in the University Library to support both doctoral work and advanced research by permanent and visiting Faculty.