The King's Troupe

We are an innovative amateur inter-generational community theatre group based in Hebden Bridge and specialising in the performance of Shakespeare. Founded in 2010 by Mary Coaten (MC) (Artistic Director) and Richard Coaten we contributed to the town’s festivities that year and created a piece that we performed on the streets. We have no audition process we are open to all ages and abilities taking part in our productions of Shakespeare plays and in recent years have (pre-pandemic) been working with refugees and asylum-seekers receiving support from St Augustine’s Centre, Halifax. This has been under the theme of “Shakespeare without Borders”. We believe as a company that not only does rehearsing, designing and performing Shakespeare bring us all as a group together, it helps forge relationships with those new to this country seeking to settle, live and work here; bringing, as they do, all their cultural riches in language, music, dance and song to the productions. In the process, new friendships are formed and these can make a real difference to all our lives and lasting over time.

For the last 9 years pre and post pandemic we have performed on their outdoor stages each summer at Stratford-on-Avon at the invitation of the Royal Shakespeare Company, the last being this year in "Actors in search of a Bard" an improvised piece.