RSC to create outdoor theatre for summer season as it reveals 2021 plans

The RSC has unveiled its plans for 2021.

As revealed, the venue will work with the BBC to record its production of '"The Winter's Tale'' for broadcast in April.

The Stratford-Upon-Avon venue is also working to present The Comedy of Errors, directed by Phillip Breen. The show had originally been scheduled to appear in the company's 2020 summer season, but will now be mounted outdoors.

It will be staged in the Garden Theatre, a brand-new, specially constructed space located in the Swan Gardens, flanked by the River Avon and overlooked by the Swan Theatre. The production is designed by Max Jones. Full casting and creative team details, alongside further details about the Garden Theatre, will be announced in April.

Erica Whyman, RSC deputy artistic director and director of The Winter's Tale said: "The Winter's Tale is the most perfect play to be rehearsing as we begin to believe in recovery. It speaks with profound insight of the abuse of power, of the need for truth and justice, of the central importance of family, and of how long it can take a nation to forgive and to heal. Then it transports us across ‘a wide gap of time' to a place of joy, of community, of love and reconciliation. We have been working on this play for 15 months – with our own wide gaps – and we have learned so much about what the play means. It is now filled with our collective understanding of what it is to find our world suddenly stopped in its tracks, and of Shakespeare's compassion for lives changed forever. It is a huge privilege to be bringing it back to life at last."

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