Essentials:
- What: Acting company and theatre complex devoted to Shakespeare, classics,challenging modern plays
- Where:Waterside, Stratford-upon-Avon, near the town center
- Website
- Box Office
- Telephone hotline: 011 44 1789 403434 (from the USA) or 0870 609 1110 (in the UK)
- Book online
- In person: from 9:30a.m to 8p.m. in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre (RST) foyer, Monday to Saturday, to 6p.m. when the theater is dark.
- Ticket prices: From £5 to about £40 depending upon the production and the venue.Discount tickets are available for:
- seniors over 60
- students
- under 30s
- Unemployed
- school and college groups
- families
- RSC members
- disabled
The Bottom Line:
About the Royal Shakespeare Theatre:
The company received a Royal Charter in 1925 and, after the fire, performed in a cinema until the new Shakespere Memorial Theatre opened in 1932.
In the 1960s, Sir Peter Hall founded the modern Royal Shakespeare Company and the theater was renamed the Royal Shakespeare Theatre.
The Company - Who's Who at the RSC:
Today Judy Dench, Ian Richardson, Janet Suzman and Ian McKellen, along with a host of distinguished character actors, perform with the next generation of newcomers hoping for a breakthrough.
Since Hall, notable directors include Trevor Nunn, Terry Hands and Adrian Noble. Michael Boyd took over the reins in 2003.
The Theatres:
- The RST has been the main stage since 1932. On November 24, 2010 it reopened to the public after a three-year, multi-million pound redevelopment.
- The Courtyard Theatre, across the road, served as a temporary home during works. When the new theatre space is fully opened, the Courtyard will revert to a studio theatre.
- The Swan, built in the shell of the original 1879 theatre, is a modern version of an Elizabethan theatre. Because of a shared lobby, it closed in August 2007 during works on the RST but reopened with new productions in 2010.
Shakespeare for the whole family:
Simply the best:
If you go to Stratford-upon-Avon without seeing a Royal Shakespeare Company production of one of Shakespeare's plays, as the English say, you are a fool to yourself.
The town itself is pretty but often over-praised and over-priced. The RSC on the other hand, won't let you down.
It may challenge your assumptions about Shakespeare though. The company's great strength is that it always regards Shakespeare's works as plays to be performed rather than objects of ancient literature for worship and study.
Forget the po-faced Shakespeare you grew up with
I remember walking out of the theatre after a production of The Merry Wives of Windsor set in the 1960s. All the wives compared their identical love letters from Falstaff while under the hairdryers in an old fashioned beauty salon. The American woman leaving the theatre ahead of me said, rather testily, "Well, I'm an English teacher and I was never taught that was what Shakespeare was about!" My thought was too bad she missed all the fun.
Since those days, I have seen the company create languid magic, in Love's Labours Lost; I've become engrossed in English history that I did not grow up with through Henry V, and had my heart broken by Ian McKellen's definitive King Lear. And even in the midst of this tragedy, the company's irreverence showed through. Lear's rowdy followers became a bunch of cossacks drunkenly dancing; Lear's fool was played by Sylvester McCoy, an early Dr. Who, in his Dr. Who glad rags and Victorian hat. Why? Well, Why not?
Stellar casts
For the price of a £5 or £10 ticket, you can see legendary performers in the roles of their careers, Britain's best theatre directors showing off what they can do, and some of the finest character actors in the world. After the play, pop round to the actor's bar, The Dirty Duck, across the road, and you are likely to rub shoulders with the actors you've just seen perform.RSC productions may surprise you, delight you, make you thoughtful or infuriated, but they will rarely disappoint. Whether you choose to eat, sleep and shop in Stratford-upon-Avon, or to stay in one of the country hotels and B&Bs nearby, don't visit Shakespeare's home town without seeing a modern take on what the old boy got up to during his short life.
