RSC updates on Complete Works Festival and announces 2007 Spring/Summer Season in Stratford-upon-Avon
04 January 2007
For the first time in its history, the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) is to stage all eight of Shakespeare’s history plays with the same company of actors. Led by the RSC’s Artistic Director, Michael Boyd, the project will last 2 ½ years and culminates during 2008 with one company of around 35 actors performing 24 hours of Shakespeare. The Histories demonstrates the RSC’s continued commitment to ensemble, nurturing a company of actors who work and train together over years.
Shakespeare’s chronicle covers a turbulent 88 years of English history, from Richard II to Richard III with the acting ensemble playing over 250 roles in the course of the marathon history cycle. The RSC last staged Shakespeare’s history cycle in 2000/01 although with more than one company of actors, and four directors. This time one company will play all eight plays in The Courtyard Theatre, the RSC’s temporary venue that allows the Company to perform in Stratford throughout the transformation of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, which begins in Spring 2007.
The Histories began in July 2006 with the Henry VI trilogy opening The Courtyard Theatre as part of the Complete Works Festival. The cycle continues in the order it was written, plotting Shakespeare’s development as a playwright before the complete tetralogy is played in historical order. The company will add Richard III to the repertoire in January 2007, Richard II in July, closely followed by the two parts of Henry IV. This production will see veteran actor David Warner in his first RSC role since his seminal Hamlet in 1966, playing Falstaff. David’s return will complete the circle on the first RSC Histories cycle – The Wars of the Roses – staged in 1963/64 by Peter Hall and John Barton in which David played Richard II and Henry VI. Henry V is the final play to join The Histories in November 2007, followed by performances of the complete cycle in Stratford and London during 2008.
The same ensemble will also stage a new play in addition to Shakespeare’s chronicle of English history. Adriano Shaplin, Artistic Director of the ground breaking New York theatre company The Riot Group, who also wrote the award-winning play The Pugilist Specialist, has been seconded to Boyd’s histories company, working closely with the actors to create a new piece of work tailored to that particular ensemble. The appointment of Shaplin, the first International Writer in Residence working between the RSC and the University of Warwick, aims to restore the link between the living writer and the ensemble – a relationship that was critical to Shakespeare’s playwriting.
2007 Season in Stratford-upon-Avon announced
The Courtyard Theatre
Following the Complete Works Festival, the Royal Shakespeare Theatre will close for its transformation and the 1,000 seat temporary Courtyard Theatre will become the RSC’s main house in Stratford, with the Histories forming its core programme through 2007.
Playing in repertoire with the Histories will be a new company of actors with a production of Shakespeare’s bitter sweet comedy Twelfth Night, directed by Neil Bartlett (former artistic director of the Lyric Hammersmith) whose last production for the RSC was The Prince of Homburg in 2001. This company will also then reprise Nancy Meckler’s acclaimed production of The Comedy of Errors (part of the RSC’s Comedies Season in 2005) and will then embark on a tour of Number One venues around the UK.
The Swan Theatre
The 2007 Swan Season will see a new ensemble performing Shakespeare’s Macbeth, directed by the Irish writer and director Conall Morrison in his RSC debut.
Alongside Macbeth, the ensemble will play Eugene Ionesco’s surrealist and darkly funny re-envisioning of the tragedy, Macbett, directed by the acclaimed Romanian theatre artist Silviu Purcarete in an English version by Tanya Ronder.
The season also includes another chance to see Dash Arts’ highly praised pan-Indian production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream directed by Tim Supple and commissioned by the British Council in India. The production was first seen in the UK as part of the Complete Works Festival and returns to Stratford in May for a three week run as part of a national and international tour.
Annual Report highlights success of Complete Works Festival
The second half of the Histories project coincides with the launch of the RSC’s 2005/06 Annual Report and Accounts, published just over midway through The Complete Works, the biggest festival in the RSC’s history and the first time that all Shakespeare’s plays have been staged at the same event.
Writing in the report, RSC Artistic Director Michael Boyd stressed the value of the collaborations developed through the Complete Works Festival:
‘Engagement with best practice from other cultures and disciplines is a critical part of the ensemble jigsaw. We cannot produce theatre in a vacuum – that is why we want to learn and share with other theatre makers. The festival is a celebration of our house playwright but also a moment for the RSC to re-engage with the world.
‘The exposure of our audiences and artists to diverse styles of theatre is not only an aspiration for the festival; it is a necessity for the Company.’
At this point in the festival, the Company has achieved 80% of the income budget for the year, selling over 450,000 tickets in total, and taking over £8.4m through the box office. The August bank holiday weekend broke all box office records with over 8,000 tickets used for seeing Shakespeare performances in five venues in Stratford (98% of available capacity). At least one in ten festival attendees so far are under 25 years old – and the festival has attracted over 100,000 new attenders to the RSC.
RSC continues to control finances
The Annual Report also shows the RSC continues to control its finances. The 2005/06 Annual Accounts show operating deficit of £0.1 million (exactly as budgeted) on a total operating income of £30 million.
The financial review also shows £12.8 million in income flowing into the Company’s project to transform its theatres. The RSC opened its temporary venue, The Courtyard Theatre, on time and on budget in July this year after an 11 month build.
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Further information
For media enquiries and images:
Philippa Harland
Head of Press
020 7845 0512
philippa.harland@rsc.org.uk
Nada Zakula
Press and PR Officer
01789 412622
nada.zakula@rsc.org.uk
Joanna Hammond
Complete Works Press and PR Officer
01789 272351
joanna.hammond@rsc.org.uk
For regional press enquiries and press tickets:
Dean Asker
Communications Officer
01789 412660
dean.asker@rsc.org.uk
Notes for Editors
The RSC’s Annual Report and Accounts 2005/6 is available to download from the RSC’s website at www.rsc.org.uk/press
Other recent stagings of Shakespeare’s History cycle
RSC
- The Wars of the Roses – an adaptation by John Barton of the Henry VI trilogy and Richard III (staged as three rather than four plays), directed by Peter Hall with John Barton, Clifford Williams, Peter Wood and Frank Evans (1963/64)
- Terry Hands directed Henry V and the Henry VI trilogy (1977/78)
- The Plantagenets – an adaptation by Adrian Noble and Charles Wood of the Henry VI trilogy and Richard III (1988/89)
- This England – all eight plays presented with three acting companies, directed by Steven Pimlott, Michael Attenborough, Ed Hall and Michael Boyd (2000/01)
Other companies
The English Shakespeare Company’s version of
The Wars of the Roses (1987/88) directed by Michael Bogdanov and Michael Pennington did include a version of the entire chronicle, but again edited the
Henry VI trilogy and
Richard III to three rather than four plays.
Summary of key dates and booking information
The Courtyard Theatre
Henry VI, parts I, II and III
Already playing – Already On Sale
Richard III – opens in January 2007
Already On Sale
Richard II – opens in July 2007
Booking dates to be announced
Henry IV, parts I and II – open in August 2007
Booking dates to be announced
Henry V – opens in November 2007
Booking dates to be announced.
Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare
Directed by Neil Bartlett
Plays from August – October 2007
Booking dates to be announced
The Swan Theatre
Macbeth by William Shakespeare
Directed by Conall Morrison
Plays from April – July 2007
For booking dates see below*
Macbett by Eugene Ionescu
Directed by Silviu Purcarete
Adapted by Tanya Ronder
Plays from May – July 2007
For booking dates see below*<
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
By William Shakespeare
Adapted and directed by Tim Supple
Plays April/May 2007
For booking dates see below*
* Tickets for Macbeth, Macbett and A Midsummer Night’s Dream will go on sale as follows:
4 January 2007 - Full members’ postal booking
15 January 2007 - Full members’ phone/web booking
22 January 2007 - Associate members’ postal booking
29 January 2007 - Associate members’ phone/web booking
5 February 2007 - Public booking opens on 0870 609 1110, in person or www.rsc.org.uk
To discover more about the benefits of becoming an RSC member visit: www.rsc.org.uk/membership or call 01789 403440. RSC Box Office: 0870 609 1110
Biographical information on visiting directors
Silviu Purcarete
Silviu Purcarete has worked in Romanian and European theatre for more than twenty years, most notably for the National Theatre of Cariova and Theatre Bulandra. His productions have won many awards and great critical acclaim both in Romania and abroad. His work has been seen extensively in the UK and includes The Decameron, Phaedra and Aeschylus’ Danaides (Glasgow), Oresteia (Lyric Hammersmith), Ubu Rex (Edinburgh International Festival) and The Tempest (Nottingham Playhouse). In 1996 he became Director of the Centre Dramatique National de Limoges for whom his productions have included Oresteia, Three Sisters and Don Juan.
Conall Morrison
Conall Morrison, originally from Armagh, is a Dublin-based director and writer. As a director, he has worked extensively in Ireland for companies such as the Abbey Theatre, Dublin (where he is an Associate Artist), the Lyric Theatre, Belfast, Storytellers Theatre Company, Dublin and Bickerstaffe Theatre Company, Kilkenny. He has also worked at the Royal National Theatre, London and has directed Martin Guerre for Cameron Mackintosh, touring England and America. He recently directed La Traviata for the ENO at the Coliseum. His own plays include Rough Justice and Green, Orange and Pink, both produced at various theatres.
Neil Bartlett
Neil Bartlett is a writer, playwright, translator, performer and director. He was Artistic Director of the Lyric Hammersmith theatre from1994 – 2004 where he directed many outstanding productions of little-known classic plays, many of which he translated or adapted himself, ranging from Jean Genet’s Splendid’s to Dickens’ Oliver Twist. He also adapted and directed Marivaux’s The Dispute and Kleist’s The Prince of Homberg in co productions with the RSC.
