Touring and education partnership
The Royal Shakespeare Company is looking forward to an exciting year in education.
From April 2012, the RSC begins a new touring and education partnership with five regional theatres:
- Hull Truck Theatre Company
- Theatre Royal Newcastle
- York Theatre Royal
- Hall for Cornwall
- Nuffield Theatre (Southampton)
The partnership, which will run through to 2015 will grow the RSC's Learning and Performance Network (LPN), which currently has over 400 schools in areas of social and economic disadvantage, teaching Shakespeare in active ways which inspire young people.
Partner theatres will use the successful 'hub school and cluster' model, developed by the RSC, to run three-year programmes with schools in Hull, Middlesbrough, York, Cornwall and Southampton.
The schools will receive training, development and performance opportunities for artists, students and teachers, supported by RSC practitioners.
Building on the success of recent Young People's Shakespeare (YPS) tours of Hamlet and The Comedy of Errors, a new RSC YPS production of King Lear will tour all five locations this autumn.
Adapted and directed by Tim Crouch, this explosive 70-minute production will be an introduction to Shakespeare for students who are least likely to access this work.
Photo: The RSC's Young Person's Shakespeare Comedy of Errors (2009). Photo by Ellie Kurtz.