Tina Packer, A Woman Of Will

1938 - 2026

A bad week got worse on Saturday when I learned that acclaimed theatre artist Tina Packer had died at 87. Tina co-founded Shakespeare & Company in 1978 and served as its artistic director until 2009. The organization’s first home was The Mount, Edith Wharton’s former residence in Lennox, Massachusetts.

“Tina affected everyone she encountered with her warmth, generosity, wit, and insatiable curiosity,” Shakespeare & Company’s current Artistic Director Allyn Burrows said. “She delighted in people’s stories, and reached into their hearts with tender humanity. The world was her stage, and she furthered the Berkshires as a destination for the imagination. Tina had so much life in her that it’s hard to think of it going anywhere but to be held in all of us.”

A former member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, Tina came to the U.S. from England in the mid-1970s. She’d received a grant to assemble a group of English and American Shakespeare actors. She sought to unite the different nationalities and their acting methods.

“What happened was my whole thinking really took off when I got to America,” Tina said in a 1978 interview with The Berkshire Eagle. “The openness of mind and the Americans' willingness to experiment was exciting.”

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My friends Brian and Nikki Weaver met at Shakespeare & Company, and their experience there would prove formative when launching the Portland Playhouse theatre company almost two decades ago. In a moving tribute posted on social media, Brian wrote, “The very DNA of Portland Playhouse is alive with Tina’s passion for truth and relentless drive to make something out of nothing. We also followed her guiding light of building a company that included Training (Apprenticeship Program), Education (work in schools) and Performance (the Playhouse). This was no coincidence, from Tina, this was the mandate. To continually be learning and improving our craft as artists, to foster the next generation of rebels and truth tellers, and to share our deepest selves on stage in a community setting.”

“Her ability to embody — physically, intellectually, spiritually — and to manifest her ethic will always live with me,” Brian added. “It’s almost unfathomable how she did it. If I hadn’t been in the room watching her, I would think. Was that real?”

In her 2016 book Women of Will, Tina examines how Shakespeare depicted women in his work. In his early, funny plays, Shakespeare’s women characters run the limited gamut of bitter shrews to brainless ingenues. Both are found in The Taming of the Shrew, which remains the misogynistic white whale of his canon. Tina described the play as “a nightmare, because the sexism is so completely accepted.” Shrew’s supposed happy ending offers a broken Kate, who has had her food, clothing, and very freedom taken away. She’s even been robbed of her language. Tina never backed away from the play, though. She directed it three times and produced it another three.

“I see it as a painful play,” Tina told The New York Times in 2016, “and I think there’s a hell of a lot of use in us doing it.”

Tina highlights in Women of Will the dramatic shift that occurs with Juliet, an extraordinary character despite what the musical & Juliet might suggest. After Romeo & Juliet, Shakespeare is suddenly capable of creating women characters with exceptional depth and realistic motivations. They are more than equal to their male counterparts. Tina addresses the obvious question — “Did Shakespeare fall in love and with whom?” — with both artistic curiosity and academic rigor.

Tina brought the play, Women of Will, to the Portland Playhouse in 2019. She shared the stage with longtime friend and colleague Nigel Gore. It was astonishing to watch her embody all these fascinating women from Romeo & Juliet, Taming of the Shrew, and Macbeth. For a Shakespeare obsessive like myself, the master class that Tina offered was an experience I’ll forever treasure.

My wife and I adored Women of Will so we were especially honored to host Tina at our home for an event during the play’s run. I vividly recall her knocking on our door and saying in an exaggerated Cockney accent, “Lemme in!” She was passionate about her work and absolutely committed to her craft, but she was also thoroughly approachable and charming. It was a wonderful evening, as she sat by our fire and chatted with those assembled about Shakespeare, theatre and the arts in general, as well as modern politics. An observation she made has always stuck with me — Donald Trump is not by himself a compelling Shakespearean villain or tragic figure. He lacks the moral and emotional depth. There are no shades of gray, just an endless streak of darkness. However, what interested her was the impact Trump had on others, how he corrupted those who clearly knew better but nonetheless enabled him because of their own moral cowardice or thirst for power. She mentioned then-Attorney General Bill Barr and Vice President Mike Pence, who Trump would later betray in a climactic moment worthy of Shakespeare. Of course, there have been so many others — The Tragedies of Elise Stefanik and Marco Rubio write themselves. There’s certainly a potential play about once-loyal MAGA cultist Marjorie Taylor Greene finally rejecting Trump.

People are sometimes shocked to discover that I’m into comic books and other genre fiction. I perhaps convey a more Frasier Crane persona in my middle age. I also have an almost 12-year-old son, so people might assume the Frankenstein, Superman, Batman, and Optimus Prime figures are all his. I mention this because later in the evening, I told Tina that I was a big fan of her work in 1960s British television. She found this amusing: “You’re one of those who’ve seen me on the telly!” (She said “telly.”)

Tina had a small role in one of my favorite episodes of The Avengers, 1965’s “Dial A Deadly Number,” which I watch every Thanksgiving. She’s Suzanne, the personal secretary for one of the villains, and she explains some key elements of the plot to John Steed (Patrick Macnee), who can’t keep his eyes off her. (She is stunning, but still, Steed, keep your eyes in your sockets. This is business.) The part was actually uncredited, but Avengers fans over the years have personally filled in the blanks. (Watch below.)

It’s perhaps fitting that I learned the sad news about Tina’s passing from a Doctor Who fan’s social media account. Tina appeared in a historically significant Doctor Who story from Patrick Troughton’s run, “The Web of Fear.” She played scientist Anne Travers who helps the Doctor defeat the evil Great Intelligence and its robotic Yeti. This was also the first ever appearance of Nicholas Courtney as then-Colonel (later Brigadier) Lethbridge-Stewart.

For almost 40 years, all but the first episode of 1968’s “The Web of Fear” was missing from the BBC archives (an unfortunate fate for far too much of Troughton’s tenure). However, in October 2013, episodes two, four, five, and six were discovered in Nigeria, along with the previous story “The Enemy of The World.” It was quite the 50th anniversary gift for Whovians.

Anne Travers was no damsel in distress. She was brilliant, courageous, and didn’t take any guff. There’s a great moment where a skeevy soldier asks Anne, “What’s a girl like you doing in a job like this?” (Anne — like Tina — was a full-grown woman in her 30s.) An unamused Anne responds, “Well, when I was a little girl I decided I wanted to be a scientist so I became a scientist.”

“Just like that?” the doofus asks. “Just like that,” Anne says before returning to her important work. (Watch below.)

Fifty years later, I shared a bottle of wine with Anne Travers and without access to a TARDIS. It was quite an evening. We filmed a discussion together about theatre for a “virtual fundraiser” during the pandemic. Afterward, she wrote “lovely conversation. We should talk more often.” I wish we could.

Tina was so full of life, enthusiasm, and wisdom, it’s still hard to accept she’s gone. People have aptly quoted Shakespeare when honoring Tina: One example is from Antony and Cleopatra: “Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety” But considering how much Tina has offered to American theatre, as well, I might end with a line from Arthur Miller’s Death of A Salesman: “What a woman! They broke the mould when they made her.”