Royal Shakespeare Company
The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs over 1,000 staff and opens around 20 productions a year. The RSC plays regularly in London, Stratford-upon-Avon, and on tour across the UK and internationally.
Abbreviation
RSC
Shakespeare Memorial Theatre Ltd.
23 April 1879
Stratford-upon-Avon
Charity
Charity incorporated under royal charter
Promote Shakespeare's plays to a truly diverse audience and their relevance to today's society.
Queen Elizabeth II until her death in September 2022
Sandeep Mahal and Vicky Cheetham
Board of Trustees
£82.98 million
£86.43 million
1205
The company's home is in Stratford-upon-Avon, where it has redeveloped its Royal Shakespeare and Swan theatres as part of a £112.8-million "Transformation" project. The theatres re-opened in November 2010, having closed in 2007.
As well as the plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries, the RSC produces new work from living artists.
The RSC has three permanent theatres in Stratford-upon-Avon:
The Courtyard Theatre was built as a temporary replacement for The Other Place theatre to house the company's work when the RST and Swan were closed for the Transformation project. It provided a full-scale working prototype for the new RST's auditorium, seating 1,045 people around a thrust stage. It was also used in 2012 for productions in the World Shakespeare Festival including Much Ado About Nothing in an Indian setting. The Courtyard Theatre was replaced by The Other Place, which was reinstated as a 200-seat studio theatre in 2016.[31] In July 2021, a temporary 500-seat outdoor theatre was built in the Swan Gardens named the Lydia & Manfred Gorvy Garden Theatre. The theatre was built due to the COVID-19 pandemic to allow productions to return following the Government guidance, beginning with Phillip Breen's production of The Comedy of Errors running during summer 2021.
The company's London presence has included tenancies of the Aldwych Theatre, The Place in Duke's Road, Euston, the Donmar Warehouse in Covent Garden, the Barbican Theatre and The Pit at the Barbican Centre in the City of London. There have also been seasons at The Mermaid Theatre, the Almeida Theatre (1988 and 1989), the Roundhouse in Camden, the Young Vic, the Playhouse Theatre, the Novello Theatre and the Gielgud Theatre.
The Theatre Royal in Newcastle upon Tyne is the third home of the Royal Shakespeare Company, alongside Stratford-upon-Avon and London.[32]