RSC Open Theatres Feb 2011 with Lear & Romeo and Juliet

The Royal Shakespeare Company today announces its plans to reopen the Royal Shakespeare and Swan Theatres in February 2011 with productions of King Lear and Romeo and Juliet, directed by RSC associate directors, David Farr and Rupert Goold.

The company will also perform artistic director Michael Boyd‘s production of Antony and Cleopatra in the Swan Theatre and both Young People’s Shakespeare productions of Hamlet and The Comedy of Errors, before going back to London to premiere three new plays at Hampstead Theatre from April to June 2011.

The theatres themselves will be open from 24 November 2010, with the company inviting people in to explore the building, which will have a brand new 1,000 seat thrust stage auditorium, 36 metre high tower, new exhibition spaces and improved public areas.

Visitors will be able to take part in a series of preview events and activities which will help test the spaces, while throughout the opening period Matilda, A Musical plays at The Courtyard Theatre.

The Royal Shakespeare Theatre auditorium, with its new thrust stage, wrapping the audience around three sides, will open with its first full Shakespeare productions in February 2011, performing familiar productions to help fully test the auditorium and backstage facilities. The current long ensemble of actors revives RSC associate director, David Farr’s King Lear, and RSC associate director, Rupert Goold‘s Romeo and Juliet, along with the Young People’s Shakespeare The Comedy of Errors, produced in association with Told by an Idiot and directed by Paul Hunter.

The ensemble will reopen the Swan Theatre with a revival of the acclaimed Young People’s Shakespeare version of Hamlet directed by Tarell Alvin McCraney and will re-visit Michael Boyd‘s production of Antony and Cleopatra on a bare stage in a bold and simple remix, seeking to throw fresh light on the complex tragedy.

They will be joined by a new production of The Tempest, a puppet version created by Little Angel Theatre, directed by their artistic director, Peter Glanville, and performance workshops of Shakespeare’s poem The Rape of Lucrece, an RSC Studio production, directed by Elizabeth Freestone and including sung text by Camille O’Sullivan and music by Feargal Murray.

Following the opening of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, the ensemble leaves Stratford-upon-Avon for the last time to premiere new work at Hampstead Theatre in April 2011, before taking the repertoire to New York in July 2011, where they will be presented by Lincoln Center Festival and Park Avenue Armory, in association with The Ohio State University.

At Hampstead, they will perform three previously announced new productions, Little Eagles, written by Rona Munro and directed by RSC associate director, Roxana Silbert, Silence, a devised piece by Filter and written and directed by RSC associate, David Farr, and American Trade by Tarell Alvin McCraney, directed by Jamie Lloyd.