RSC Plans for Edinburgh Festival Debut in 2012???

While most discussion centred on Stratford-upon-Avon and London at today’s Royal Shakespeare Company press briefing, Whatsonstage.com had a private word with artistic director Michael Boyd to get the inside track on the company’s plans for Edinburgh as well. Various RSC executives were checking out the action at the Edinburgh Fringe last month, when one opined to Whatsonstage.com that “the whole of the industry is here, it’s ridiculous that we’re not”. Boyd (who studied at the University of Edinburgh) evidently agrees; he confirmed today that the RSC does plan to be in festival attendance, probably starting in 2012 to coincide with their Olympics year World Shakespeare Festival.

Whether the RSC will throw its hat into the EIF or Fringe ring remains hush-hush, but it’s likely that it would present a mix of classical and new work at the world’s largest arts festival. Currently, most of the Shakespeare offerings at the Fringe or student productions or spoofs such as this year’s MTM: UK Award-winning Hamlet! The Musical. The RSC has already dipped its toe into the UK summer festival pond via the annual Latitude Festival, which takes place in a field in Suffolk each July.