With our wide-ranging repertoire, our critical engagement with Shakespeare’s work and our belief in the importance of arts and humanities subjects to the world we live in, relationships with universities are enormously important to us. 

Universities are place-makers, they play a civic role in the life of their communities. As well as deepening academic knowledge, they extend and share access to it. Our relationships with emerging and established scholars can open up and influence the way that we make work as well as how we reflect on that work and its significance to our world and lives. 

We aim to create lasting impact for the students, artists and academics we reach by offering practice based workshops exploring Shakespeare and his contemporaries for English, Theatre Studies and Drama students as well as workshops introducing rehearsal room pedagogy for students training to be teachers.

Our collaboration with the University of Birmingham

The University of Birmingham is a founding partner in The Other Place in Stratford-upon-Avon.

Our exciting five year collaboration with the university is based on a mutual aspiration to develop The Other Place as a unique hub for rehearsal, training, learning and creativity.

This pioneering project has seen the reinstatement of the RSC Studio Theatre at The Other Place. Re-opened in 2016 to coincide with the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, The Other Place is the RSC’s creative hub for rehearsal, training, learning and research. Our collaboration with the University of Birmingham provides students with access to creative and teaching spaces at The Other Place, as well as the expertise of RSC artists and practitioners. University of Birmingham students also benefit from the opportunity to attend RSC productions and events.   

THE PROGRAMME INCLUDES

• The MA Shakespeare and Creativity and MA Shakespeare and Education. Both courses are enhanced by the Shakespeare Institute’s collaboration with the RSC at The Other Place, offering unique and extensive opportunities to work with RSC artists. 
• The BA English with Shakespeare. Through this course, students have access to unparalleled resources for studying Shakespeare, through the Shakespeare Institute's collaboration with the RSC. 
• Research through Practice Projects at The Other Place. At the heart of the collaboration are practice-led research projects, which aim to bring academic criticism and scholarship together with creative experiment in order to make something new - something which opens up fresh possibilities for both theatre-making and academic research.  
• Across the University of Birmingham, students access specially programmed workshops, courses and events at The Other Place, featuring input from RSC artists and practitioners, and see RSC shows.

Erica Whyman, Deputy Artistic Director of the RSC, said: 

"I am hugely excited about re-imagining The Other Place as a vibrant, creative space, embodying the challenging and alternative spirit of the original. It is an exemplary home for theatre artists, and a space where students, our artists, visiting theatre-makers and our audiences can really feel part of the "engine room" of the RSC."

"Our partnership with the University of Birmingham is a brilliant opportunity for students to get right into the heart of the RSC, using the theatre and its resources as part of their undergraduate and postgraduate studies. Their presence, alongside our artists, brings a real energy to the building."

FIND OUT MORE

• Read student and academic perspectives from the University of Birmingham's work with the RSC

• More about the RSC and the University of Birmingham collaboration 

• More about the Shakespeare Institute 

• More about the University of Birmingham School of English, Drama and Creative Studies