Tina Packer, founder and longtime director of Shakespeare & Company, dies at 87

Tina Packer, the founder and longtime artistic director of Shakespeare & Company in western Massachusetts, died on Jan. 9 in Pittsfield, Mass. She was 87. Her death, in a hospital, was caused by organ failure, said her son, Martin Asprey. Ms. Packer founded Shakespeare & Company in 1978 with voice teacher Kristin Linklater, actor-director Dennis Krausnick and other theatre artists, and served as the company’s artistic director until 2009.

The troupe began at the Mount, Edith Wharton’s estate in Lenox, and since 2001 has performed at a nearby complex of five theatres; one of those theatres was named for Ms. Packer in 2012. She told The New York Times in 2017, "I wanted to set up a company that could be like Shakespeare’s company." The company grew into a major regional theatre with annual revenue of nearly $4.9 million.

Her five-decade directing journey through Shakespeare’s plays began in 1971, when she staged Measure for Measure, The Winter’s Tale and Hamlet while teaching at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, and ended in 2017 with Cymbeline. Most scholars count her work as encompassing about 37 plays.

She conceived the two-person show "Women of Will" in the 1990s, later adapting it into a book, and was influenced by her study with John Barton and by exercises she learned in the EST program.

Key Topics

Culture, Tina Packer, Shakespeare & Company, The Mount, Kristin Linklater, Dennis Krausnick