RSC's Canterbury Follows Crucible into Gielgud???
Date: 8 May 2006
After the critical and popular success of the Royal Shakespeare Company production of Arthur Miller's
The Crucible, which opened at the West End’s Gielgud Theatre on 5 April 2006 (previews from 29 March), producers
Bill Kenwright and
Thelma Holt are hoping to follow it up with another of this winter's non-Shakespeare productions from Stratford-upon-Avon.
Mike Poulton’s two-part adaptation of Geoffrey Chaucer’s medieval
The Canterbury Tales is expected to open at the Gielgud in July, after
The Crucible finishes its run on 17 June 2006.
The Canterbury Tales ran in repertory at Stratford from 1 December 2005 to 4 February 2006 (previews from 16 November) ahead of a UK tour and a transfer to Washington DC, where it finished on 7 May. It's now back in the UK for additional regional dates ahead of visiting Spain until 1 July. All 23 of Chaucer’s bawdy tales of pilgrims on the road to Canterbury are staged in the two self-contained parts, directed by
Gregory Doran,
Rebecca Gatward and
Jonathan Munby (See
News, 26 Apr 2005). An RSC spokesperson told Whatsonstage.com the dates are yet to be finalised, but the transfer is expected to happen in early July. Commenting on the RSC’s first staging of a Chaucer play when the season was launched last year, RSC artistic director
Michael Boyd said: “We know Shakespeare drew inspiration from Chaucer, so it's appropriate that in the run up to the Complete Works Festival we explore the roots of our theatrical history. The company has a great track record in bringing classic literary texts to the stage.” In
The Canterbury Tales, Paola Dionisotti plays the Prioress with
Claire Benedict as the Wife of Bath. The rest of the cast are
Michael Jibson as well as Nick Barber, Daon Broni, Dylan Charles, Lisa Ellis, Christopher Godwin, Michael Hadley, Anna Hewson, Edward Hughes, Michael Mateus, Barry McCarthy, Chu Omabala, Ian Pirie, Joshua Richards, Christopher Saul, Katherine Tozer and Darren Tunstall.
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