About WSF

The Woodward Shakespeare Festival's Mission is to present live theatre productions for the cultural education, entertainment, and inspiration of our community, and to make our contribution to the arts of California's Central Valley accessible to everyone. All Shakespeare performances in Fresno's Woodward Park are free of charge.

 A Shakespeare festival is always a popular and successful way to promote the arts in any community. Shakespeare endures because he defines our need to explore the limits of our creativity, our need to understand our foibles, our follies, and our miraculous feats of extraordinarily simple life; in short, he defines our very humanity.

Shakespeare brings out the best of everyone involved. Those who perform him find themselves reaching above their perceived limitations. Those in attendance reach outside themselves to share the wonder they have experienced. Too many people are denied this profound linking of community either through economics or lack of opportunity. Shakespeare belongs to everyone, no matter their race, their nationality, and their prejudices: We all bleed when we are pricked. That Shakespeare wrote in England, in English, and primarily about English characters signifies nothing: he wrote in the world and he wrote about humanity as a whole.

It is in this spirit that we of the Woodward Shakespeare Festival seek to unite the community in and around Fresno through the human need of a common experience. It is in this spirit that we wish to make our contribution to the culture of California's Central Valley free to the entire community. It is in this spirit that we seek to create not only performances but also a Festival to strengthen and build that community through the deeper understanding and celebration of our common human understanding and the paradox that what makes us unique also makes us the same.

This is the spirit of the Woodward Shakespeare Festival: we will take you from the page to the stage, building our community through culture.