RSC's New Season to Include OTHELLO, EDWARD II and Works by Sheridan and Hanif Kureishi

Newly appointed Co-Artistic Directors of the RSC, Daniel Evans and Tamara Harvey have announced their inaugural season for the Company, encompassing a full year of programming and opening up all four theatres in the Company’s Stratford-upon-Avon home – the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, the Swan Theatre, the newly invigorated The Other Place, as well as the popular outdoor performance space, The Holloway Garden Theatre. 

Comprising eight Shakespeare plays across the four stages, three world premières, a European première, a UK première, two major revivals, and two visiting productions, the season will welcome internationally renowned talent to the RSC, with five writers and ten directors – including Harvey – making their RSC debuts, Ukraine’s Uzhhorod Theatre with King Lear, and Northern Ballet with Romeo & Juliet. 

With a desire to put accessibility at the heart of their tenure, Evans and Harvey will programme a summer season in The Holloway Garden Theatre with bite-sized Shakespeare for all ages, plus workshops and events. A major new ticket initiative is also launched today with 25,000 tickets at £25 or less across the season in Stratford-upon-Avon. This will run alongside the TikTok £10 tickets for 14 to 25 year olds and state school students. 

Tamara Harvey and Daniel Evans said today,

“We begin our chapter at the RSC by announcing a whole year’s worth of shows - seventeen in total, across four stages. With this, our first season, we want to throw open the doors in every sense, collaborating with artists from across the globe on all of our stages, and ensuring we can welcome as many people as possible with a brand-new ticket initiative of 25,000 tickets across the season at £25 or less. 

“Our house playwright sits at the core of our season, with eight new productions across our theatres. The timeless, protean nature of Shakespeare’s writing offers an exciting canvas for artists – and we're excited to be renewing collaborations with so many of them, as well as inviting myriad others to make their RSC debuts. We will also host Northern Ballet for the first time with their imagining of Romeo & Juliet and Ukraine’s Uzhhorod Theatre with King Lear, both bringing their own unique take on Shakespeare’s stories. 

“Shakespeare stands alongside a play by Christopher Marlowe, his contemporary, and a raft of new work by some of our most creative contemporary storytellers – Emma Rice and Hanif Kureishi, Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson, Sanaz Toossi, Nancy Harris and David Edgar, bringing first-time partnerships with Wise Children, Headlong, Good Chance and Kiln Theatre. 

“This season marks the beginning of a new era for the RSC. We hope you will join us.”

The Shakespeare plays will be led by artists including Emily Burns, Blanche McIntyre,RSC Co-Artistic Director Tamara Harvey, Brendan O’Hea, Prasanna Puwanarajah,Tim Carroll and Rupert Goold, with actors Luke Thompson, Samantha Spiro, Alfred Enoch, John Douglas Thompson, Will Keen, Juliet Rylance and Luke Thallon leading the companies of Love’s Labour’s Lost, The Merry Wives of Windsor, Pericles, Othello and Hamlet respectively. 

The new work includes a co-production of Hanif Kureishi’s The Buddha of Suburbia with Emma Rice’s Wise Children; the European première of Sanaz Toossi’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play English produced in association with Kiln Theatre and directed by Diyan Zora; a new project from the award-winning team behind The Jungle, Kyoto, in a co-production with Good Chance directed by Justin Martin and Stephen Daldry; a new adaptation of The Red Shoes by Nancy Harris, directed by Kimberley Rampersad; and David Edgar’s The New Real directed by Holly Race Roughan, Artistic Director of Headlong. 

Completing the season, Tinuke Craig directs Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s comedy of manners, The School for Scandal; and Co-Artistic Director Daniel Evans makes his return to the RSC stage in the title role of Christopher Marlowe’s Edward II directed by Daniel Raggett.

THE SEASON IN FULL 

ROYAL SHAKESPEARE THEATRE: 

• Luke Thompson leads the company of Love’s Labour’s Lost directed by Emily Burns
• Rumour, gossip and scandal take centre stage in a comedy double-bill of Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor directed by Blanche McIntyre, led by Samantha Spiro as Mistress Page; and Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s The School for Scandal directed by Tinuke Craig
• Tim Carroll directs John Douglas Thompson as Othello with Will Keen as Iago and Juliet Rylance as Desdemona
• Twelfth Night directed by Prasanna Puwanarajah
• Adapted by Christopher Gable and Massimo Moricone with music by Sergei Prokofiev, Northern Ballet visits the RSC for the first time with their much-loved staging of Romeo & Juliet 
• Luke Thallon reunites with Olivier Award-winning Director Rupert Goold to make his RSC debut in the title role of Hamlet

SWAN THEATRE: 

• Hanif Kureishi’s The Buddha of Suburbia makes its global stage première in a major new co-production with Wise Children directed and adapted by Emma Rice,with Hanif Kureishi, with a cast including Dee Ahluwalia and Ankur Bahl
• From the creators of The Jungle, Good Chance and the RSC present Kyoto, a new play by Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson directed by Stephen Daldry and Justin Martin
• RSC Co-Artistic Director Tamara Harvey directs Alfred Enoch in a major new production of Shakespeare’s late romance Pericles
• Associate Artistic Director of the Shaw Festival Theatre, Kimberley Rampersaddirects a magical new staging of The Red Shoes, adapted by Nancy Harris
• Double Olivier Award-winning actor and RSC Co-Artistic Director Daniel Evansreturns to the RSC stage in a new production of Christopher Marlowe’s Edward IIdirected by Daniel Raggett

THE OTHER PLACE: 

• Sanaz Toossi’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, English, receives its European première in association with Kiln Theatre, directed by Diyan Zora (2021 Genesis Future Directors award-winner) with actors Nadia Albina, Sara Hazemi, Lanna Joffreyand Serena Manteghi

• First performed early in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Uzhhorod Theatre Companypresent King Lear, adapted and directed by Vyacheslav Yehorov
• Presented in association with Headlong, David Edgar’s The New Real receives its world premiere, directed by Holly Race Roughan

THE HOLLOWAY GARDEN THEATRE:

• The Holloway Garden Theatre will make its return to Stratford-upon-Avon with a new staging of Shakespeare’s As You Like It directed by Brendan O’Hea. This will be accompanied by a series of family-friendly workshops and events as well as a new interpretation of The Two Gentlemen of Verona by young people aged 13-18 from the RSC’s talent development programme Next Generation Act
   

FAMILY-FRIENDLY ACTIVITIES:

• May half-term activities announced today include Tim Crouch’s critically acclaimed one-man re-imagining of Twelfth Night, I, Malvolio, and a new collaboration with Underbelly, Tweedy’s Massive Circus featuring the star of Gifford’s Circus, Tweedy the Clown
• The Play’s The Thing – the RSC’s free interactive exhibition returns with new exhibits for 2024 co-curated with Stratford-upon-Avon partners The Fred Winter Centre, ILEAP and Warwickshire Pride, and is inspired by themes of Resilience and Possibility. The exhibition features the RSC’s First Folio alongside costumes worn by Vivien Leigh, Josette Simon, Ben Kingsley, David Tennant and Ian McKellen with interactive opportunities to explore the story of the RSC 

Priority booking for Members and Supporters opens from Monday 22 January for Love’s Labour’s Lost, The Buddha of Suburbia, English, The Merry Wives of Windsor, The School for Scandal, King Lear, Kyoto, Romeo & Juliet, Pericles and As You Like It; with public booking opening on Thursday 8 February. For further information on how to become an RSC Member or Supporter, visit here. 

On sale from Spring 2024: Othello, Twelfth Night, The Red Shoes, The New Real, Hamlet and Edward II, with further details to be announced.

Photo Credit: Seamus Ryan

 

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