The Royal Shakespeare Company News

In celebration of the musicals' relaunch, Lyn Paul returns for her farewell tour in the iconic role of Mrs Johnstone, which she first made her own in London's West End. 

Currently Creative Director at Manchester International Festival (MIF), Mark will join the multi-arts centre in January 2022 and will have overall responsibility for the artistic direction of the largest cultural centre in the UK, leading the organisation as it enters a new era. Mark will report to Elaine Bedell, CEO.

Duncan is well-known as a member of pop group Blue. The band formed in 2001 and have had 40 number one singles worldwide, three number one UK albums and sales of over 16 million records. They took a break in 2005, before reforming to represent the UK at the 2011 Eurovision Song Contest.  

Following the confirmed easing of government restrictions on Monday 19 July, the RSC increased its capacity from 250 to 310 seats per performance and will move to 80% capacity, 400 seats from mid-August.

Written by pioneering Jamaican playwright Barry Reckford, the first Black Briton to have a play staged at the Royal Court, White Witch tells the historical story of a white woman who falls in love with a Black man, and of the terrible consequences of their forbidden affair. Set around Rose Hall, Jamaica against the backdrop of the 18th century slave trade, the play follows Annie Palmer, who has been married off to a plantation owner following her scandalous affair with a Black man.

Sweet peas in the garden; homemade lemon curd in the kitchen; conjugal joy in the bedroom. Judy (Sandy Foster) and Johnny (Tom Kanji) seem to be the perfect couple - quite sickeningly happy, in fact. But is their marriage everything it seems? Are there cracks in their domestic bliss? And where do they go when the manners and morals of the 1950s don't quite suit them?

BroadwayHD announced today that it will bring Lambert Jackson Productions’ virtual production of the musical comedy I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change, filmed at the London Coliseum in late 2020 exclusively to the platform in honor of the hit show’s twenty-fifth anniversary. 

Tickets, which are free, will be available to book for pre-registered audiences on Friday 20th August, with general on-sale on Friday 27th August. Casting information to be confirmed. Learn more about the production here!

Stephen Mallatratt’s adaptation of Susan Hill’s bestselling novel tells the story of a lawyer obsessed with a curse that he believes has been cast over his family by the spectre of a ‘Woman in Black’. He engages a young actor to help him tell his story and exorcise the fear that grips his soul.

David will retrace his steps as a young actor, visiting more than 20 theatres across the UK before a final performance at the Stockton Globe on 19 December.

Classic Stage Company today announced that Tony Award-winning Artistic Director John Doyle will depart the organization next summer and revealed the programming for his final year. The forthcoming productions will offer a vivid, wide-ranging representation of the multitudes classic theater can contain.

Four new trustees will also be joining the Lyric's Board bringing new talent and skills to the existing Board chaired by Lisa Burger; Rondette Amoy Smith, Lameya Chaudhury, Professor Farah Kerim-Cooper and Derek Richards.

Hunter Theater Project will present an Independent Theater Production of WHAT HAPPENED?: THE MICHAELS ABROAD, a world premiere play and the final in the Rhinebeck Panorama, written and directed by Tony Award winner Richard Nelson.

Madison Marie McIntosh will perform a concert at The Players, an historic social club in Manhattan, on Thursday, July 22, 2021. The program for the concert will include beloved works from opera and musical theatre, and world premieres of songs by Jeff Shankley. Ms. McIntosh will be joined by acclaimed pianist and conductor Keith Chambers.

Playwright and novelist Michael Frayn was today awarded  the Critics Circle Award for Services to the Arts, the Critics Circle’s highest honour. Every year since 1988, the Critics’ Circle has voted for a single leading artist to receive an engraved crystal rose bowl in recognition of their distinguished contribution to the arts.

The world stage premiere of The Magician's Elephant will run in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre from Thursday 14 October 2021 to Saturday 1 January 2022 with press night on Tuesday 26 October 2021. Learn more about the production here!

ACT Louisville Productions producers Beth Craig Hall (Actors Center for Training and Dancers Center for Training) and Randy Blevins have announced the complete cast and creative team for their musical production The Wizard of Oz at The Iroquois Amphitheater July 30-August 2.

The concert was produced by Theatre Support Fund+ which was founded during the pandemic to raise monies theatre freelancers affected by the closure of theatres across the country. Find out how to watch the broadcast here!

The new Garden Theatre will open this Summer with a reconceived version of The Comedy of Errors, one of Shakespeare’s earliest and arguably funniest plays, running from 13 July – 26 September. The production, directed by Phillip Breen, was due to be part of the RSC’s 2020 season, but was postponed owing to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The celebrated tenor Kim Begley made his Royal Opera House debut in 1983 and has since then established himself at the forefront of the repertoire, with credits ranging from Britten to Busoni, Wagner to Brett Dean's opera of Hamlet. In keeping wih Shakespeare, if not this time round with singing, Begley has joined a starry lineup of British opera world names to perform King Lear later this month at the Grange Festival for three performances - and we're talking the play in its full, unadultered majesty and not the opera, with Sit John Tomlinson as Lear, Thomas Allen as Gloucester, and Begley as the Fool, and many other notable names besides. As it happens, Begley cut his teeth as a performer some years back with the Royal Shakespeare Company and explains this return to his classical roots below.