The Arden Shakespeare Gild continues a 100-year tradition of community Shakespeare in the historic village of Arden, Delaware. A member organization of the Arden Club, the gild is dedicated to including everyone with an interest in Shakespeare, both as audience and as participant. The gild produces one of Shakespeare’s plays each summer in the open-air Frank Stephens Memorial Theater in Arden, and sponsors lectures, readings and social activities throughout the year. The Arden Shakespeare Gild meets at 7:30 p.m. on the first Wednesday in the Gild Hall, just south of Harvey Road at Orleans Road. Our address is 2126 The Highway, Arden, Delaware 19810. You can also get the latest Club & gild events or leave us a message at (302) 475-3126. For additional information visit our CONTACT US page.   
Officers 
(as of October 2009)

Current Gild Officers as of October 2009:
Gildmaster: Tom Wheeler
Asst. Gildmistress: Laura Wallace
Secretary: Rhys McClure
Treasurer: Bob DeNigris
Arden Club Liasions: Laura Wallace & Cecilia Vore
Nominating Committee Members: Betty Solway Smith & Jan Westerhouse


A Little History

YES, IT'S SPELLED G-I-L-D!

But, no, it’s not the “Shakespearean” spelling of “guild.” In Shakespeare’s day, the English language was growing by leaps and bounds, and spelling was inconsistent. “Gild” does appear as an alternate to “guild,” but it’s not a peculiarly Elizabethan or even British spelling. So why g-i-l-d? The late Holley Webster, community theater activist and founder of Stage Monthly, once told me that early Ardenites chose “gild” because they were following George Bernard Shaw's efforts to reform spelling of the English language.

While I haven’t searched the Arden Archives for Arden Club documents to confirm this, it’s a likely explanation. Spelling reform was a hot topic in the early 1900s. Mark Twain and Theodore Roosevelt were also notable supporters of spelling reform. Along with linguistic arguments for reform were concerns for social welfare: simpler spelling would eliminate barriers to literacy, especially for an immigrant population. I can easily imagine that, when they created a guild structure for their new Arden Club, Arden folk chose the reformed spelling for "gild," just as they embraced so many other intellectual, political and artistic trends of the time (Esperanto, housework co-operatives, "organic" schooling).   -- Cecilia Vore May 2009

Explore Arden's history
and the Arden-Shakespeare connection

The Arden Craft Shop Museum is a small, charming museum that preserves the history of Delaware's utopian villages — Arden, Ardentown and Ardencroft. The collection features photos, theater costumes and examples of furniture, pottery, ironwork, and other arts and crafts that have been produced in the villages since Arden's founding in 1900. The museum is open Wednesday evenings 7:30-9 pm and Sunday afternoons 1-3 pm. To see more about the museum, go to http://www.theardens.com/museumIntro.htm

View this vintage photo of Arden founder Frank Stephens playing the role of Touchstone in Arden's 1915 production of "As You Like It."

Especially for our audiences, the Arden Craft Shop Museum will be open before every outdoor evening performance and both before and after our Sunday matinee on June 20th. (These additional hours are only for outdoor performances; if weather forces us indoors, the museum will not be open.) The Arden Craft Shop Museum is located at 2300 Cherry Lane, directly across the Green from the Field Theater. The Community Room at the Museum is actually our dressing room, so you'll look for the actors applying makeup, stretching, and going over their lines, and you'll find the museum. Come early, park your car, buy your tickets and put your seat cushions on the benches, then stroll over to the museum for look at  the early history of the village that takes its name from Shakespeare's own Forest of Arden.

Extended hours at the Arden Craft Shop Museum before outdoor Shakespeare performances:
June 18, 19, 23-26  6-7:15 pm, Sunday, June 20: regular 1-3 pm hours, plus open after the performance. "As You Like It" matinee starts at 2 pm.

Contact us for more info