ROYAL SHAKESPEARE COMPANY LOOKS BACK ON THE YEAR AND RELEASES 2021 – 2022 ANNUAL REVIEW
FOR DETAILS OF THE RSC'S YEAR SEE THE 2021/2022 ANNUAL REVIEW
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Highlights include:
The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) looked back on the 2021 - 2022 financial year at the Company’s Annual General Meeting (AGM), which took place today (Wednesday 14 December) in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. The meeting was chaired by RSC Chair Shriti Vadera, with reports by RSC Acting Artistic Director, Erica Whyman, and Executive Director, Catherine Mallyon, plus a review of the year by the Youth Advisory Board. Co-Artistic Directors Designate, Daniel Evans and Tamara Harvey, who take up post in June 2023, were in Stratford for the event.
Erica Whyman, Acting Artistic Director, said:
‘As we look back on the previous year, we are proud to be reporting sell-out shows in Stratford-upon-Avon and London with A Christmas Carol and My Neighbour Totoro, and a wonderful response to the 2023 programme including Hamnet, which will see the re-opening of the Swan Theatre. As the country emerged from the pandemic, we led our recovery with vision and compassion. We made extraordinary theatre, onstage, in our gardens, on the streets, and in classrooms and communities across England. We tried and tested new ways of thinking and working in what has been an unforgettable year made possible by the hugely skilled and generous colleagues who make the RSC what it is’.
Catherine Mallyon, Executive Director, said:
‘It has been a time of immense achievement for the Company and also great challenge. There is much to be confident about but, alongside all in the arts sector, we are aware of the continuing volatility in which we operate. We continue to be bold and ambitious, to co-create our work with the partners and communities we work with around the country, to welcome audiences in Stratford, London and on tour, to support over 500,000 young people with their learning and development, and to lead the way in creative immersive technologies and digital development.
‘The Company is well on the way to a strong recovery from the significant and prolonged impact of Covid, but we are still seeing the direct impact of the pandemic. Our recovery continues, and we are managing this with great care in an environment of rising costs and uncertainty, but with the support of our audiences who have returned in strength to experience our work.
‘A carefully phased approach to reopening has enabled the Company to continue to be financially viable and to plan into the future. Our total income for the year to 31 March 2022 was £39.7m with total expenditure of £43.3m leading to a deficit of £3.6m. Gains arising from investment assets and a favourable actuarial movement on our defined benefit pension scheme reduced this deficit so that the overall reduction in our funds was £2.0m for the year. This was better than anticipated and the deficit was supported by the Culture Recovery Fund loan designed for this purpose.
‘We thank everyone who continues to support us including through the loan from the Culture Recovery Fund, which is supporting our recovery and which we will begin repaying in 2025, the funding of Arts Council England and the generosity of thousands of donors and our sponsors’.
The AGM featured a performance from The Magician’s Elephant by Jack Wolfe, who played the lead role in the RSC’s celebrated 2021 family production, and a piece from the First Encounters with Shakespeare production of Twelfth Night, which toured to schools and regional theatres this year. Eleven members of staff celebrated their achievements and received their Long Service Awards showcasing the breadth of skills and craftmanship that exist within the Company including costume making, music, sales and ticketing, Front-of-House, maintenance, and gardening. These Awards are presented to colleagues who have reached 20, 30 or 40 years’ service with the Company.
Erica Whyman added,
‘Congratulations and sincere thanks to everyone receiving their Long Service Awards. With over 250 years of experience between them, their skill and expertise can be seen across the organisation every day. The RSC is a theatre and learning charity and we train the next generation of professional theatre makers both on the job and when inspiring and sharing knowledge with young people who may not know that theatre is a realistic career option for them’.
During the AGM long serving members of staff received their Awards including:
For twenty years’ service:
Margaret Bidgood, from Stratford-upon-Avon, Front of House Assistant
Hege Bleidvin-Sandaker, from Stratford-upon-Avon, Deputy Sales and Ticketing Manager
Helen Davenport, from Evesham, Assistant Women’s Cutter, Costume Workshop
Emma Fleming, from Mickleton, Sales Operator
Charlotte Hobbs, from Stratford-upon-Avon, Senior Theatrical Milliner and Jeweller
Alistair McArthur, from Leamington Spa, Head of Costume
Bruce O’Neil, from Stratford-upon-Avon, Head of Music
Gina Print, from Tiddington, Print Buyer and Visual Communications Department Coordinator
For thirty years’ service:
Kevin Waterman, from Birmingham, Musician
ENDS
For further information please contact:
Kate Evans, Media and Communications Manager
07920 244434
Kate.evans@rsc.org.uk
Jane Ellis, Head of Media and Communications
07966 295032, jane.ellis@rsc.org.uk
Dean Asker, Senior Media Relations Officer
0778 9937759, dean.asker@rsc.org.uk
Notes to editors:
The RSC is supported using public funding from Arts Council England
The work of the RSC is supported by the Culture Recovery Fund
The RSC is generously supported by RSC America
Arts Council England
Arts Council England is the national development body for arts and culture across England, working to enrich people’s lives. We support a range of activities across the arts, museums and libraries – from theatre to visual art, reading to dance, music to literature, and crafts to collections. Great art and culture inspires us, brings us together and teaches us about ourselves and the world around us. In short, it makes life better. Between 2018 and 2022, we will invest £1.45 billion of public money from government and an estimated £860 million from the National Lottery to help create these experiences for as many people as possible across the country. www.artscouncil.org.uk
Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC)
The Royal Shakespeare Company is a theatre and learning charity that creates world class theatre, made in Stratford-upon-Avon and shared around the world, performing plays by Shakespeare and his contemporaries, as well as commissioning an exceptionally wide range of original work from contemporary writers. Our purpose is to ensure that Shakespeare is for everyone, and we do that by unlocking the power of his plays and of live performance and out learning and education work throughout the UK and across the world.
We believe everybody’s life is enriched by culture and creativity. We have trained generations of the very best theatre makers and we continue to nurture the talent of the future. Our transformative Learning programmes reach over half a million young people and adults each year, and through our Creative Placemaking and Public Programme we create projects with and for communities who have not historically engaged with our work. We are a leader in creative immersive technologies and digital development.
We have a proud record of innovation, diversity and excellence on stage and are determined to grasp the opportunity to become an even more inclusive, progressive, relevant and ambitious organisation.
We have one of the UK’s largest arts learning programmes, working with over 1,000 schools each year to broaden access to high quality arts learning and transform experiences of Shakespeare in schools. Through our national partnership programme with schools and regional theatres we target areas of structural disadvantage, including 26 areas of multiple deprivation across the country, from Cornwall to Middlesbrough. Research shows that our approaches to teaching Shakespeare support the development of reading and writing skills, accelerate language acquisition and development, raise aspirations and improve student attitudes to school and learning in general. They also foster well-being, self-esteem, empathy, resilience and tolerance and promote critical-thinking, creative, analytical, communication and problem-solving skills.
We are committed to being a teaching and learning theatre and we are the only arts organisation to have been awarded Independent Research Organisation status. We create world class theatre for, with and by audiences and theatre makers of all ages. We provide training for emerging and established theatre makers and arts professionals, for teachers and for young people. We share learning formally and informally. We embed training and research across our company, work and processes.
We recognise the climate emergency and work hard to embed environmental sustainability into our operations, creative work and business practice, making a commitment to continually reduce our carbon footprint.
Keep Your RSC supports our mission to create theatre at its best, unlocking Shakespeare and transforming lives. Thousands of generous audience members, trusts and foundations and partners supported Keep Your RSC since 2020, alongside a £19.4 million loan from the Culture Recovery Fund, we are thrilled to be welcoming audiences back. It will take time to recover, to reopen all our theatres, and many years to repay the loan and the support and generosity of our audiences is more important than ever. Please donate at rsc.org.uk/donate
