The Royal Shakespeare Company announces its Winter 2012/13 season in Stratford with a new adaptation of a classic children's story and a Swan Theatre season exploring the rest of the world in Shakespeare's time.
Royal Shakespeare Theatre
Following the World Shakespeare Festival, the RSC's winter season opens in October with a new adaptation of Russell Hoban's classic children's story The Mouse and His Child.
Adapted for the stage by Tamsin Oglesby, this 20th century classic of children's literature, is a moving story about two clockwork mice thrown on a scrap heap who then have to begin a dangerous quest for a place to belong.
The Mouse and His Child will play in repertoire with a new production of The Merry Wives of Windsor, further details to be announced soon.
Swan Theatre – 'A World Elsewhere'
The Swan Theatre premieres a trilogy of newly-adapted international plays, in repertoire from November, exploring what was going on in the rest of the world during Shakespeare's lifetime.
Gregory Doran opens the season with The Orphan of Zhao, a powerful tale of self-sacrifice and revenge, sometimes referred to as the Chinese Hamlet. This production, based in part on a version by Ji Junxiang, published in 1615, is adapted by James Fenton.
Next, from Russia, an adaptation by Adrian Mitchell of Alexander Pushkin's play, Boris Godunov, directed by Michael Boyd, his final production as Artistic Director of the RSC. Pushkin, often considered the father of Russian Literature, wrote Boris Godunov in 1825, inspired by Shakespeare's Macbeth.
Then to Italy, for a new translation of Bertolt Brecht's Galileo by Mark Ravenhill, the RSC's latest Writer in Residence. Galileo explores the confrontation of religious fundamentalism and scientific evidence, through the 1616 trial of the great scientist and philosopher.
And finally, in London, Anjin: The English Samurai, the story of William Adams, the first Englishman in Japan, who was shipwrecked off the coast in 1600. The play is by Mike Poulton and Sho Kawai, with British and Japanese actors. It transfers from Tokyo to Sadler's Wells, for ten performances in January 2013.
Booking for Winter Season productions opens on Monday 27 February 2012 for RSC members. Public Booking opens on Monday 26 March 2012.
Photo: RSC Chief Associate Director Gregory Doran directing The Orphan of Zhao and Anjin: The English Samurai. Photo by Ellie Kurttz.