History

The Abilene Shakespeare Festival is located in Abilene, Texas on the Abilene Christian University campus. Beginning in 2003, we are excited to take advantage of the new theatre spaces in ACU's Williams Performing Arts Center to hold the Festival. We believe this choice to be an exciting challenge for artists, as well as an integral part of the life and culture of Abilene and the surrounding areas. The 2000 Festival was our first time to produce two plays simultaneously, and it proved to be a great success both with audiences and with cast/crew.

The Festival, which takes place annually in July, provides an excellent opportunity to expose West Texas to the major works of Shakespeare and other classical literature. Our audiences have been made up of young and old, blue collar and white collar, cowboy and executive. We continue to introduce new patrons to Shakespeare who have little experience in regular theatre-going, and we are committed to bringing them high-quality, exciting new productions of classical works for no admission price.