Royal Shakespeare Theatre
Encyclopedia
Royal Shakespeare Company
The Royal Shakespeare Company is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs 700 staff and produces around 20 productions a year from its home in Stratford-upon-Avon and plays regularly in London, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and on tour across...
dedicated to the British playwright
Playwright
A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...
and poet
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
. It is located in the town of Stratford-upon-Avon
Stratford-upon-Avon
Stratford-upon-Avon is a market town and civil parish in south Warwickshire, England. It lies on the River Avon, south east of Birmingham and south west of Warwick. It is the largest and most populous town of the District of Stratford-on-Avon, which uses the term "on" to indicate that it covers...
- Shakespeare's birthplace - in the English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
Midlands
West Midlands (region)
The West Midlands is an official region of England, covering the western half of the area traditionally known as the Midlands. It contains the second most populous British city, Birmingham, and the larger West Midlands conurbation, which includes the city of Wolverhampton and large towns of Dudley,...
, beside the River Avon. The Royal Shakespeare and Swan Theatres re-opened in November 2010 after undergoing a major renovation known as the Transformation Project.
History
The Royal Shakespeare Theatre opened on 23 April 1932 on the site adjacent to the original Shakespeare Memorial Theatre (opened 19 April 1879), which had been destroyed by fire on 6 March 1926, whose name it took. The architect was Elisabeth ScottElisabeth Scott
Elisabeth Whitworth Scott was a British architect who designed the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre at Stratford-upon-Avon, England. This was the first important public building in Britain to be designed by a female architect....
, so the theatre became the first important work erected in this country from the designs of a woman architect. It is now owned and managed by the Royal Shakespeare Company
Royal Shakespeare Company
The Royal Shakespeare Company is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs 700 staff and produces around 20 productions a year from its home in Stratford-upon-Avon and plays regularly in London, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and on tour across...
and was renamed Royal Shakespeare Theatre in 1961.
Structure
The Royal Shakespeare and Swan Theatres are on the western bank of the River Avon, with the adjacent Bancroft Gardens providing a scenic riverside setting. The Rooftop Restaurant and Bar overlooks both the river and the Bancroft Gardens.Original structure
In its original form, the theatre had a proscenium-archProscenium
A proscenium theatre is a theatre space whose primary feature is a large frame or arch , which is located at or near the front of the stage...
stage, and a seating capacity
Seating capacity
Seating capacity refers to the number of people who can be seated in a specific space, both in terms of the physical space available, and in terms of limitations set by law. Seating capacity can be used in the description of anything ranging from an automobile that seats two to a stadium that seats...
of about 1,400 people, on three tiers (stalls, circle and balcony). Two tiers of seating were later added to the side walls of the theatre and the stage extended beyond the proscenium, by means of an 'apron'. Balcony seats could only be accessed by means of a staircase to the side of the building, separate from the main foyer and bar. The theatre has several notable Art Deco
Art Deco
Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...
features, including the staircase and corridors at either side of the auditorium. It is a Grade II* listed building.
Redevelopment
The Royal Shakespeare Company has renovated the Royal Shakespeare Theatre as part of a £112.8m Transformation project which included the creation of a new 1040+ seat, thrust stage auditorium which brings actors and audiences closer together, with the distance of the furthest seat from the stage being reduced from 27m to 15m. The Transformation project also included improvements to the Swan Theatre, the creation of an array of new public spaces, including a new Riverside Cafe and Rooftop Restaurant, a 36 metre observation tower, and improved backstage conditions for the actors and crew. The new theatre is also more accessible to people with disabilities and offers a more comfortable theatre experience.The theatre is a “one-room” theatre, which allows the actors and the audience to share the same space, as they did when Shakespeare’s plays were first produced. The stage reaches out into the audience, who are seated on three sides of it. This one-room theatre creates a more traditional Shakespearean performance area, allowing the audience to draw closer to the actors and creating a more personal theatre experience.
The funding for the project came from many different sources including; private pledges, Arts Council England, and the regional development agency Advantage West Midlands, as well as a successful public fundraising campaign. The Transformation project also incorporated the creation of the temporary Courtyard Theatre to house performances in Stratford-upon-Avon during the time the Royal Shakespeare and Swan Theatres were closed, new offices at Chapel Lane, a nursery and refurbished rehearsal rooms at Arden Street. The project reached over a total of £100 million in cost and also drew in financial support from RSC America and its own board members.
Plans to redevelop the theatre
Theatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...
were finalised and work commenced in 2007, with a scheduled completion date of 2010. The RSC had its own project team, led by Project Director, Peter Wilson OBE. Other members of the project team included: Bennetts Associates
Bennetts Associates
Bennetts Associates is one of the UK’s leading firms of architects, and has won more than 100 awards since its foundation in 1987.In particular, Bennetts Associates is recognised for its expertise in sustainability through innovative projects such as the Wessex Water Operations Centre in Bath,...
(architects), Buro Happold
Buro Happold
Buro Happold is a professional services firm providing engineering consultancy, design, planning, project management and consulting services for all aspects of buildings, infrastructure and the environment, with its head office in Bath, Somerset...
(engineers and transport consultants), Charcoalblue (theatre consultants), Mace
Mace (company)
Mace Group Ltd, commonly known as Mace, is a global consultancy and construction firm headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It has operations across 49 countries, offering a variety of services that span the entire property life cycle, from fund monitoring, cost consultancy, design management,...
(construction managers), Acoustic Dimensions (acoustic consultants), Drivers Jonas Deloitte (project management and strategic planning advisors) and Gardiner and Theobald (quantity surveyors and planning supervisors).
Meanwhile, performances were transferred to the temporary Courtyard Theatre
Courtyard Theatre
The Courtyard Theatre is a temporary 1,048 seat thrust stage theatre building in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. Designed by Ian Ritchie Architects and built in 11 months, it opened in August 2006 to host performances by the Royal Shakespeare Company while its Royal Shakespeare and Swan Theatres...
, which was a full-sized working prototype for the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, built on the site of the RSC's studio theatre, The Other Place
The Other Place (theatre)
The Other Place was a black box theatre on Southern Lane, near to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. It was owned and operated by the Royal Shakespeare Company....
.
The new theatre opened in November 2010, with preview events and activities, in advance of the first full Shakespeare performances from the RSC's existing repertoire from February 2011. The first new productions designed specifically for the Royal Shakespeare Theatre's stage began from April 2011, with Michael Boyd's Macbeth, part of the RSC's 50th Birthday Season celebrations, which run from April to December 2011.
The Royal Shakespeare Theatre was officially opened on 4 March 2011 by Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh is the husband of Elizabeth II. He is the United Kingdom's longest-serving consort and the oldest serving spouse of a reigning British monarch....
, who were given a performance of the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately unite their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular archetypal stories of young, teenage lovers.Romeo and Juliet belongs to a...
.
Facilities
The theatre has a new Rooftop Restaurant and Bar with views over the River Avon, a Riverside Cafe and Terrace, a Colonnade linking the Royal Shakespeare and Swan Theatres together for the first time, the PACCAR Room exhibition space, and a 36m high Tower which provides circulation and views across Stratford-upon-Avon and the surrounding area from its 32m high viewing platform. There is also a riverside walk which stretches from the Bancroft Gardens, past the theatre, towards Holy Trinity Church.The whole building is now accessible for the first time for visitors, performers and staff with disabilities. There are three times as many dedicated wheelchair spaces in the new Royal Shakespeare Theatre auditorium in comparison to the previous auditorium, new lifts (there were no public lifts in the previous building), accessible toilets on all levels and no steps on the riverside walk, which previously had many stepped levels.
External links
- Royal Shakespeare Company homepage
- Royal Shakespeare Theatre. The Company: A Biographical Dictionary of the RSC: Online database by Simon Trowbridge
- The New RST: First Impressions. The Company: A Biographical Dictionary of the RSC: Online database by Simon Trowbridge
- Jonathan Bate discusses the renovated Royal Shakespeare theatre
- ZPU Journal.ru - Bartoshevich Aleksey V. Stratford Theatre of Our Time: Is Shakespeare for Tourists?