RSC Actors Worry for Company???

Things became a bit heated last night at Whatsonstage.com’s Outing to the Royal Shakespeare Company’s critically acclaimed production of The Taming of the Shrew, now at the West End’s Queen’s Theatre under the auspices of commercial producers Bill Kenwright and Thelma Holt. After the performance, stars Jasper Britton and Alexandra Gilbreath joined Whatsonstage.com theatregoers for a post-show discussion, which took a political turn when an audience member asked how they felt about the RSC’s current lack of a London home. Gilbreath admitted that “it breaks my heart that we (the RSC) can’t get it together to bring all of the shows” from Stratford to London. The company she said is in a “terrible state” with a fixation on the deficit “that has totally taken over” management thinking. Both she and Britton put stock in current artistic director Michael Boyd, but said the RSC had “been run into the ground” by his predecessor, Adrian Noble, who stepped down in April 2003. Britton also charged other members of the board with shouldering the blame for some of Noble’s costly decisions, including the company’s withdrawal from its subsidised residency at London’s Barbican Centre. “The board en masse should resign now because they’re only getting in the way of Michael Boyd,” he said. An announcement on a temporary home in the capital for the RSC is expected shortly (See News, 4 Dec 2003).

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