New Swan Shakespeare Festival Seminars & Education
UC Irvine Claire Trevor School of the Arts, Department of Drama, 249 Drama, Irvine, CA 92697-2775
About
New Swan Shakespeare Festival Seminars & Education offers a range of activities connected to its Shakespeare festival, including a Seminar Series, High School Visits & Workshops, an Artist Shadowing Program, and a Summer Apprenticeship Program. The program also includes Community Conversations, Shakespeare Weekend, and the Friday Folios Series, all connected to the festival’s productions and events. Performances and activities take place in a 16-ton movable, 130-seat, mini-Elizabethan theater where every seat is close to the action.
The program is led by a team that includes Eli Simon (Artistic Director, Founding Artistic Director, and Producing Artistic Director & Founder), Beth Lopes (Associate Artistic Director and Director), Greg Ungar (Associate Artistic Director & Actor), Rachael VanWormer (Associate Artist, Actor & Director), Abel Garcia (Associate Artist & Actor), Miriam Mendoza (Associate Production Coordinator), Julia Reinhard Lupton (Festival Dramaturg & Special Events Director), and Jesús López Vargas (Production Coordinator & Outreach Director). Its mission states that productions include people with a variety of backgrounds and experiences, that differences affect the productions, and that theater without diversity is described as meaningless while diversity without equity is described as an empty promise. New Swan Shakespeare Festival is hosted and produced in collaboration with the Drama Department at the University of California Irvine, the Office of Research, the Claire Trevor School of the Arts, and the School of Humanities. The festival has received the Arts Orange County Award 2013 for Outstanding Contribution to the Built Environment and is described as a professional Shakespeare festival that typically produces two Shakespearean works in rotating repertory under the stars, featuring professionals and students working side by side in a portable, mini-Elizabethan space. Reviews from the LA Times, OC Weekly, the Orange County Register, and Coast Magazine describe the theater as a charming outdoor place to experience Shakespeare, a makeshift mini-Elizabethan theater that brings actors and audience into a concentrated collective, an intimate space, and a festival that stages Shakespeare creatively and with gusto.
Last updated June 4, 2026.
The program is led by a team that includes Eli Simon (Artistic Director, Founding Artistic Director, and Producing Artistic Director & Founder), Beth Lopes (Associate Artistic Director and Director), Greg Ungar (Associate Artistic Director & Actor), Rachael VanWormer (Associate Artist, Actor & Director), Abel Garcia (Associate Artist & Actor), Miriam Mendoza (Associate Production Coordinator), Julia Reinhard Lupton (Festival Dramaturg & Special Events Director), and Jesús López Vargas (Production Coordinator & Outreach Director). Its mission states that productions include people with a variety of backgrounds and experiences, that differences affect the productions, and that theater without diversity is described as meaningless while diversity without equity is described as an empty promise. New Swan Shakespeare Festival is hosted and produced in collaboration with the Drama Department at the University of California Irvine, the Office of Research, the Claire Trevor School of the Arts, and the School of Humanities. The festival has received the Arts Orange County Award 2013 for Outstanding Contribution to the Built Environment and is described as a professional Shakespeare festival that typically produces two Shakespearean works in rotating repertory under the stars, featuring professionals and students working side by side in a portable, mini-Elizabethan space. Reviews from the LA Times, OC Weekly, the Orange County Register, and Coast Magazine describe the theater as a charming outdoor place to experience Shakespeare, a makeshift mini-Elizabethan theater that brings actors and audience into a concentrated collective, an intimate space, and a festival that stages Shakespeare creatively and with gusto.
Last updated June 4, 2026.
Is this your business? There is no cost, but you will be asked to sign up or log in.