Performances, theatre tours and workshops will be included in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s events to celebrate Shakespeare’s birthday.
The festivities will begin with the town’s Shakespeare birthday parade at 10AM on Saturday 26 April. It will start at Bancroft Gardens and go to Holy Trinity Church where Shakespeare is buried. Anyone may join the parade.
There will be contributions from Bridgetown, Shottery, Bishopton and Stratford primary schools whose pupils have worked with the RSC’s creative learning team on four banners which will be accompanied by aerial puppets inspired by the animals depicted in their designs.
In the Avonbank Gardens, families can take part in free puppet-making workshops while enjoying performances by community groups which take place throughout the day.
The Play's The Thing, the RSC’s free exhibition which began in 2016, will reopen and will include a selection of new items celebrating more than 100 years of theatre-making in Stratford. At the heart of the exhibition will be a new film which follows the creation of the RSC’s 2024 production of King Lear which premièred in The Other Place. It was created in partnership with the Theatre Studio of Internationally Displaced People (IDP) Uzhik, Ukraine.
The RSC has introduced a riverside tour and a ghost, gore and folklore tour to its attractions.
Theatregoers can also explore the meaning behind the text of the RSC’s upcoming productions of Much Ado About Nothing and Titus Andronicus during its Discover Days on Saturday 17 and Saturday 24 May. Further details are available at the RSC web site.