The Company's History

The Collingswood Shakespeare Company is a new entity, born just in 2006, but its lineage can be traced back nearly 100 years. The town had no library at the turn of the last century, but, in October 1910, a literary group known as the Shakespeare Club instigated a public meeting called for the purpose of forming a Library Association. The Association's charge was to sound out opinion on the feasibility of establishing a public library, to look into the ways and means, and to find for it a suitable location. The Board of Education and the Civic Association endorsed the venture, money was raised, and books were collected. The Collingswood Public Library opened to the public on January 11, 1911. Its growth was enough to warrant a new building in 1917, and then its current building in 1975.

No records exist on the fate of the Shakespeare Club, but the connection came full circle in 2005 when new library director Bradley Green proposed the establishment of a Collingswood Shakespeare Company.