|
Links
Articles
News
Reviews
Amateur
Theatre
Contact
Other
Resources
Bookstore
Forum
Search
the Site
|
Dateline:
8th February, 2006
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| All
photographs by Clare Park |
The RSC and the Complete Works
The Royal Shakespeare Company has announced the full programme for
its year-long Complete Works Festival in Stratford-upon-Avon. The festival,
which launches on Shakespeare’s birthday, 23 April 2006, is the
first time that all of Shakespeare’s plays and poems have been
staged at the same event.
With 23 RSC shows, seventeen international productions and fourteen
by UK-based visiting companies, the RSC is gearing up to host what will
be one of the major international cultural events of 2006.
Onstage the festival opens in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre with Nancy
Meckler’s production of Romeo and Juliet. Rupert Evans and
Morven Christie make their RSC debuts as the star-crossed lovers and
Sorcha Cusack returns to the RSC as Juliet’s nurse. In the Swan
Theatre, Patrick Stewart and Harriet Walter take on the title roles
in Gregory Doran’s Antony and Cleopatra.
As well as the productions already announced, the RSC has confirmed
that it will also be staging the following productions:
- Coriolanus directed by Gregory Doran;
- Julius Caesar directed by Sean Holmes;
- King John directed by Josie Rourke;
- Much Ado About Nothing directed by Marianne Elliott;
- Richard III directed by Michael Boyd;
- Pericles and The Winter’s Tale directed by Dominic
Cooke.
The final production as part of the Complete Works Festival will be
King Lear, directed by Trevor Nunn and with Sir Ian McKellen
in the title role. King Lear will run in rep in The Courtyard
Theatre from March 2007.
New casting has also been announced today:
- Tamsin Greig and Joseph Millson as Beatrice and Benedick in Marianne
Elliott’s Much Ado About Nothing
- Patrick Stewart plays Prospero in Rupert Goold’s production
of The Tempest
- Finbar Lynch returns to the RSC after nearly 12 years as Cassius
in Julius Caesar, which is directed by Sean Holmes and with
John Light as Brutus
- Desmond Barrit as Falstaff joins Judi Dench (Mistress Quickly) in
Merry Wives The Musical directed by Gregory Doran and with
music by Paul Englishby and lyrics by Ranjit Bolt
- William Houston and Janet Suzman play Coriolanus and Volumnia in
Coriolanus
Newly confirmed highlights among the visiting companies include:
- New York-based theatre company, Tiny Ninja Theater, performs Hamlet
for the first time in the UK using an inch-high cast of small, plastic
ninja figurines
- The award-winning Compagnia Pippo Delbono from Italy performs the
UK premiere of Enrico V, inspired by Henry V. Involving
cabaret, comedy, music and dance, the cast will include a chorus of
locally-recruited amateur actors
- Multi award-winning Teatr Piesn Kozla (Song of the Goat Theatre)
from Poland, presents its current work in progress, based on Macbeth
- The legendary Berliner Ensemble – which inspired the creation
of the modern RSC - presents its production (first staged in 2000)
of Richard II directed by the company’s artistic director,
Claus Peymann
- Cardboard Citizens applies its unique brand of theatre to Shakespeare’s
supposedly unfinished text Timon of Athens
- RSC founder, Sir Peter Hall, makes a welcome return to Stratford
after an absence of nearly eleven years, with his first UK production
of Measure for Measure staged by his own company
- Sir Peter’s son, director Edward Hall, also returns to Stratford
with his all-male company, Propeller, presenting The Taming of
the Shrew
- Samuel West, the newly appointed artistic director at Sheffield
Theatres, makes a welcome return to the RSC and brings his new company
to Stratford for the first time with As You Like It
- Yellow Earth Theatre in association with Shanghai Dramatic Arts
Centre gives King Lear a modern spin in its bilingual (English
and Mandarin) production
- Chekhov International Theatre Festival in association with Cheek
by Jowl performs its all-male Russian version of Twelfth Night.
As well as full-scale productions onstage, the festival will also explore
new takes on Shakespeare’s plays, including original interpretations
from experimental companies and new plays from contemporary dramatists.
In October 2006, the RSC will construct an intimate and unique 100
seat studio theatre within the Royal Shakespeare Theatre auditorium.
The Cube at the RST will host a range of innovative and small companies
including:
- Tiny Ninja Theater’s miniature version of Hamlet
- Forkbeard Fantasy’s production of Rough Magyck which
looks for the supernatural in Shakespeare using mechanical sets, film,
cartoon and puppetry
- Filter Theatre’s physical and visual ‘work in progress’
based on Twelfth Night
- The UK premiere of Yellow Earth Theatre and Shanghai Dramatic Arts
Centre’s bilingual and modern take on King Lear.
Continuing the RSC’s commitment to new work, the festival will
feature four new commissions inspired by Shakespeare’s plays and
written by some of the country’s leading playwrights:
- The Indian Boy: a new play by Rona Munro written in response
to A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Set in an ancient forest,
nature defies the property developers
- Days of Significance: a new play by Roy Williams written
in response to Much Ado About Nothing. Set in market-town England
and the deserts of Iraq
- One of These Days: a rehearsed reading of Leo Butler’s
dark response to The Tempest, set in occupied Ireland in 1775
- Regime Change: Peter Straughan’s new play is produced
in collaboration with BBC Radio 3. Set in Istanbul, the play is a
response to Julius Caesar. A single reading by the RSC will
take place in October before the play is recorded for broadcast on
BBC Radio 3.
The Sonnets
In a unique commission by Opera North and the RSC, Shakespeare’s
Sonnets will be set to music. Curated by one of the world's leading
contemporary composers, Gavin Bryars, musical heavyweights such as singer/songwriter
Natalie Merchant and violinist Alexander Balanescu, are among those
who will set their chosen sonnets to music.
The project also features the premiere of a major new commission: Gavin
Bryars' Nothing Like The Sun. A through-composed musical rendition
of a series of Shakespeare’s sonnets, the piece will be accompanied
by a film projection. Nothing Like The Sun - The Sonnet Project
will be presented in speech and song in The Courtyard Theatre by professional
singers and RSC actors to the backing of an eight-piece orchestra.
Underpinning the main performance line-up is a full programme of events
and activities planned for the year, designed to appeal to theatre
and non-theatre goers.
Headline events announced today include:
- Shakespeare On Film – In August, Mark Kermode curates
a free series of films to be shown on an outdoor screen on the banks
of the River Avon. Films include: Baz Lurhmann’s Romeo and
Juliet (1996); Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet (1996); Laurence
Olivier’s Oscar-winning Henry V (1944); and Roman Polanski’s
Macbeth (1971)
- Broadsides – Exploring the issues raised in Shakespeare’s
plays, topics covered in this series range from language, sex, film,
Englishness, faith, war and the supernatural. Speakers include the
Archbishop of Canterbury; Fay Weldon; former MP Chris Smith; Roy Hattersley
and award-winning Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk
- Mini Complete Works Festival – In June and July school
children will stage their own version of the Complete Works in The
Dell, a new open air theatre set alongside the River Avon. The Mini
Complete Works Festival will feature the schools’ reduced versions
and responses to Shakespeare’s plays
- Playing With History – The staging of Sulayman Al-Bassam’s
The Baghdad Richard alongside Michael Boyd’s own production
of Richard III provides a platform for a series of debates
and discussions around Shakespeare’s History Plays. The Playing
With History series runs over four days in February 2007 and kicks
off with Michael Boyd and Sulayman Al-Bassam examining political power
in the History Cycle.
A full programme of other events including: talks and demonstrations
with actors, directors and RSC practitioners; debates; live music; backstage
tours; workshops and family and schools events, will be available to
the public in March 2006. Details from www.rsccompleteworks.co.uk
or from the RSC Ticket Hotline: 0870 609 1110.
Announcing the programme, RSC Artistic Director, Michael Boyd said,
“With visiting companies from almost every continent, this is a
real opportunity to extend our relationships with audiences and artists
from around the world. As well as a platform to celebrate our own work,
the festival is a conscious attempt to showcase and explore the way
different cultures, languages, styles of theatre and art forms approach
Shakespeare. Like any great festival, there's plenty of opportunity
to experiment and stumble across the new. There's enough in this year
to cover all tastes, but in the process you might also experience the
Sky Orchestra floating over Stratford in hot air balloons, or catch
the Tiny Ninja's unique take on Hamlet.
“The festival is a year-long exchange with a group of artists
who share more than just performing Shakespeare. I hope the legacy of
the festival will be a set of partnerships and new relationships that
extend well beyond the life of the Complete Works and an outward-looking
RSC that is challenged and stimulated by theatre from around the world.”
The Launch
The RSC marks the official launch of the festival with a series of
special events taking place over Shakespeare’s birthday weekend
(22nd and 23rd April). These include a Montague vs Capulet football
match; behind the scenes workshops; live music; and the first in a year-long
series of Broadside debates with the Archbishop of Canterbury discussing
‘Shakespeare and The Creative Imagination’. Joining Michael
Boyd in the celebrations are Patrick Stewart, Harriet Walter, Janet
Suzman and Sir Peter Hall.
|A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K|L|M|N|O|P|Q|R|S|T|U|V|W|X|Y|Z|
News
Archive A-L
News Archive M-Z
Production News Archive
Please note that all three Archive
indices are very long and will therefore take some time to download.
|
