The Bards

Spots Available! 

Interested in joining us this season? Reach out to Laura@SouthernShakes.org to learn about the season ahead, including our schedule, expectations, training, performances, and special opportunities.

Meetings will be Mondays and Thursdays at Pyramid Studios 1910 Commonwealth Lane Tallahassee, FL 32303

Parent Resources

• Intake Form
• Payment Portal
• Waiver – Please sign and print or email to Laura@SouthernShakes.org.

The Bards (formerly The Bardlings) is Southern Shakespeare Company’s training and performance program for young theatre artists. The program is designed for aspiring actors, designers, stage managers, technicians, and other emerging theatre professionals.

Throughout the school year, members participate in professional-caliber training, hands-on rehearsals, and production experiences while working alongside Southern Shakespeare Company’s directors, teaching artists, and visiting professionals. Students receive focused instruction in acting, musical theatre, voice, movement, stagecraft, technical theatre, and other theatrical disciplines, developing the artistic, technical, and collaborative skills essential to live performance.

As members of The Bards, students will:

• Train with professional directors, theatre educators, and working artists.
• Participate in workshops, master classes, guest lectures, and field trips.
• Perform in community events and educational outreach opportunities throughout the year.
• Collaborate with fellow young artists in a supportive, ensemble-based environment.
• Perform in (or work behind the scenes on!) a fully staged production presented as a showcase and then as part of Southern Shakespeare Company’s annual Shakespeare in the Park Festival.

Whether their passion is performing under the lights, calling cues backstage, designing costumes or scenery, creating lighting and sound, or bringing productions to life through technical theatre, The Bards provides a welcoming and challenging environment where young artists can learn, create, collaborate, and grow as artists, leaders, and storytellers.

Audition and interview information for the upcoming season will be announced soon.

For more information, please contact Laura W. Johnson at laura@southernshakes.org.

Mandi Broadfoot (The Bards Associate Director, pictured at left)is a Tallahassee-based writer, theatre teacher, wife, and mother of two teenagers. After attending Santa Fe College on musical theatre scholarship and graduating from the University of South Florida with degrees in Literature and Creative Writing, Mandi moved to Los Angeles to pursue a screenwriting career. In 2002, she won the Variety Magazine “Pitch Me” screenwriting competition at the Cannes Film Festival, and subsequently sold several screenplays to major production companies. Since returning to the Big Bend, Mandi co-founded the inclusive Tallahassee performing arts school, Making Light Productions, and has performed in small commercial and student films. She has also written and produced several stage plays for children and teenagers, including the musical Under the Rainbow and the play Career Day is Canceled. In 2020, her book, Teaching Theatre Online, was published by Beat by Beat Press. Mandi currently serves on the Board of Directors of Theatre Tallahassee. 

Phil Croton (The Bards Assistant Director, pictured center) was born and raised in London, and attended The Italia Conti Drama School, making his West End debut at the tender age of eleven, flying around the stage as John Darling in Peter Pan at the Scala Theatre–and he was cast again in the same role the following year! He also appeared on television in A Play for Today for the BBC and in minor roles in films and television, but his true love always has been live theatre. He has worked in Theatre in Education, in the UK, for Freshwater and Konflux Theatre companies. He was also the Head of the Education Dept. for the Theatre Royal in Bury St. Edmunds. He is working to instill a love of Shakespeare to the children and young adults in Tallahassee through frequent in-school workshops and as an Assistant Director of The Bardlings. Phil has appeared in such diverse roles as Sir Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons and R.P. McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Other roles include leads in A Chorus of Disapproval, Separate Tables, The Real Inspector Hound, and The Typist. He has also directed various productions including The Donahue Sisters, Humble Boy, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Theatre Royal Youth Company, Maria Marten). He appeared as Oberon/Theseus in Southern Shakespeare’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 2014.