Royal Shakespeare Company News

?Nuffield, Southampton's leading professional producing company, today announced their new 2016 Autumn season which boasts two world premieres; a major new musical adaptation of Roald Dahl's Fantastic Mr Fox and a brand new play, dramatising Shakespeare's mysterious relationship with his patron, the 3rd Earl of Southampton.

Curtain Call has announced the publication of their inaugural book, which boasts never before seen photography from nearly 60 London theatre productions in 2015/16. CURTAIN CALL: A YEAR BACKSTAGE IN LONDON THEATRE, created by photographer Matt Humphrey and actor/director John Schwab, features an extraordinary collection of fly-on-the-wall backstage images, offering glimpses of big names like Benedict Cumberbatch, Nicole Kidman, Mark Rylance, Imelda Staunton, Kristin Scott Thomas, Mark Strong and Damian Lewis. Inspired by the 40th anniversary of the Olivier Awards, it's the first in a planned series of photography books.

Oscar, Tony and Olivier winner Vanessa Redgrave and Tony winner Ralph Fiennes will reunite as mother and son in their first London stage outing together this summer in Shakespeare's RICHARD III at the Almeida Theatre.

Having played a sold out run in the fall of 2014, the acclaimed Irish/French singer/actress Camille O'Sullivan will return to New York's intimate Irish Arts Center with an eight-show residency from April 6-16. Camille's dramatic, original interpretations of songs by Jacques Brel, Nick Cave, Tom Waits, David Bowie, Arcade Fire and Radiohead, and love of narrative storytelling have critics around the world raving. "When she sings it's as though her breath is soaked in paraffin - one spark and the whole room would ignite," writes The Daily Telegraph.

Arrows & Traps Theatre Company presents Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, adapted by Helen Edmundson, Tuesday 15 March to Saturday 2 April.  Press Night | Thursday 17 March | 7.45pm

Chicago Shakespeare Artistic Director Barbara Gaines, Executive Director Criss Henderson and Board Chair Sheli Z. Rosenberg were joined by Navy Pier, Inc. CEO Marilynn Gardner and Board Chair William J. Brodsky as well as Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel today to announce the creation of an innovative performance venue, The Yard at Chicago Shakespeare. Construction on the theater begins this spring; Chicago Shakespeare plans to stage its first production in The Yard in the 2017-18 Season.

Soho Rep., in association with John Adrian Selzer, presents the U.S. premiere of Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again. by award-winning British playwright Alice Birch. Originally commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company, the American premiere is directed by Lileana Blain-Cruz, 30, with both rigor and a playful spirit, and features Daniel Abeles, Molly Bernard, Eboni Booth and Jennifer Ikeda. The production introduces American audiences to Birch, 29, who was a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize in 2012 and 2015 and is a co-winner of the 2014 George Devine Award for Most Promising Playwright.

The Almeida Theatre announces the cast for the world premiere of Boy, a new play by Leo Butler, directed by Sacha Wares. The cast is Mohammad Amiri, Osmain Baig, Ruby Bridle, Emilio Doorgasingh, Terina Drayton, Aeran Fitzgerald, Frankie Fox, Ellie Mai Gallagher, Bayleigh Gray, Zainab Hasan, Duramaney Kamara, Asiatu Koroma, Wendy Kweh, Lev Litvinov, Georgie Lord, Angel Loren, Teann McDonnell, Eugenie-Alexia Mulumba, Sarah Niles, Demi Papaminas, Imogen Roberts, Abdul Salis, Morgane Tapia,Peter Temple and Matthew Wellard. Boy will run at the Almeida Theatre from 5 April until 28 May, with a Press Night on 12 April.

Matilda The Musical is eligible for the Magic Radio Audience Award at the 2016 Olivier Awards. To encourage the public to vote - fans have dug out their inner Matilda to help create the Lip Sync trailer below!

Red Bull Theater today announced that their Twelfth Season will continue with Shakespeare's Coriolanus, directed by Michael Sexton, on Monday March 7th at 7:30 PM, at the Lucille Lortel Theatre (121 Christopher Street, between Bleecker and Hudson).  Featured in the cast will be Estelle Parsons (Academy Award winner for Bonnie and Clyde and nominee for Rachel, Rachel, five time Tony Award nominee),  Chukwudi Iwuji (Olivier Award-winning Henry VI Trilogy at the Royal Shakespeare Company, TFANA's Tamburlaine, NYSF's King Lear), Matthew Rauch ('Banshee'), Jay O. Sanders ('Person of Interest,' 'Law & Order: Criminal Intent'), along with David Barlow, Louis Cancelmi, Henry Clarke, Kimiye Corwin, Autumn Dornfeld, Emily Gardner Hall,  Peter Francis James, Merritt Janson, Ian Lassiter, Michael Schantz and more. Coriolanus will be a co-presentation with The Shakespeare Society.  Tickets may be purchased online at www.redbulltheater.com or by phone at (212) 352-3101.

The big theatre event for this year's Adelaide Festival is titled, with deceptive simplicity, The James Plays Trilogy,

Schikaneder - the turbulent love story behind the Magic will have its World Premiere in Vienna in the Raimund Theater on September 30.  Vienna Crowd favorite Mark Seibert will star.

Encores! Artistic Director Jack Viertel today announced casting for the Encores! production of 1776, the classic Tony Award-winning musical about how the founding fathers drafted the Declaration of Independence and gave birth to a new nation. 1776 will star Terence Archie, John Behlmann, Larry Bull, Nikki Renee Daniels, Andre De Shields, Macintyre Dixon, Santino Fontana, Alexander Gemignani, John Hickok, John Hillner, John Larroquette, Kevin Ligon, John-Michael Lyles, Laird Mackintosh, Michael McCormick, Michael Medeiros, Christiane Noll, Bryce Pinkham, Wayne Pretlow, Tom Alan Robbins, Robert Sella, Ric Stoneback, Jubilant Sykes, Vishal Vaidya, Nicholas Ward, and Jacob Keith Watson. 

This season, the Royal Shakespeare Company celebrates not only the 400th anniversary of the death of their namesake, but also that of Miguel de Cervantes, with a brand new adaptation of Don Quixote. After a lifetime of reading books on chivalry, Don Quixote decides to embark on a quest of his own. Taking up a lance and sword, he sets out to become a wandering knight, defending the helpless and vanquishing the wicked. Hopelessly unprepared and increasingly losing his grip on reality, he travels across Spain accompanied by his faithful and equally ill-suited squire. With each calamitous adventure they experience, the romantic ideal of Quixote's books seems further away than ever.

TIME Magazine's #1 Show of the Year, the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of MATILDA THE MUSICAL, is coming to Canada!  Produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Dodgers, MATILDA THE MUSICAL is presented in Toronto by David Mirvish as part of his 2015-16 Main Subscription Season. Performances begin Tuesday July 5 at the Ed Mirvish Theatre, with the media night scheduled for Thursday, July 7 at 6:45 PM.  Tickets will be available for performances until September 4, 2016.

Fresh from Shakespeare's Globe and the Royal Shakespeare Company, renowned British director Jonathan Munby returns to Chicago to stage Shakespeare's most intimate tragedy. OTHELLO, featuring James Vincent Meredith in the title role, continues the Theater's Shakespeare 400 Chicago celebration, now through April 10, 2016. BroadwayWorld has a first look at the cast in action below!

Theatre for a New Audience's production of William Shakespeare's Pericles directed by Trevor Nunn, featuring OBIE Award-winner Christian Camargo in the title role and leading a diverse company of 22 actors, Jeffrey Horowitz, opens tonight, February 25, for a run through March 27, 2016.

This summer, Sir Trevor Nunn returns to his home town of Ipswich to direct William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream at the New Wolsey Theatre running from Thursday 16 June to Saturday 9 July 2016.

Welcome Home, Captain Fox!, Anthony Weigh's new version of Jean Anouilh's hit 1937 comedy Le Voyageur Sans Bagage, will begin previews at The Donmar Warehouse from Thursday 18 February . The production is directed by Blanche McIntyre, and a cast that includes Michelle Asante, Barnaby Kay, Rory Keenan, Katherine Kingsley, Trevor Laird, Sian Thomas, Danny Webb, Fenella Woolgar and Daniel York.

Red Bull Theater today announced the cast for Richard Brinsley Sheridan's The School For Scandal, directed by Marc Vietor: Dana Ivey (Tony Award nominee for Butley, The Rivals, The Last Night of Ballyhoo, Sunday in the Park with George, Heartbreak House); Mark Linn-Baker (My Favorite Year, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, A Year with Frog and Toad, 'Perfect Strangers'); Frances Barber (internationally renowned West End actress: King Lear and The Seagull with Ian McKellen at BAM, the Donmar's Julius Caesar at St Ann's Warehouse, 'Doctor Who,' Prick Up Your Ears, and the Pet Shop Boys musical Closer to Heaven); and Henry Stram (Titanic, The Grey Zone), along with Helen Cespedes, Christian Conn, Christian DeMarais, Jacob Dresch, Ramsey Faragallah, Ryan Garbayo, Bradley Gibson, Nadine Malouf, Ben Mehl, and Derek Smith ('Tis Pity She's a Whore, The Green Bird - Tony Award nomination).