RSC to Reopen Stratford Theatres in November

The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) will reopen its Royal Shakespeare and Swan Theatres in Stratford-upon-Avon on November 24 with a series of special exhibits and programs.

Visitors will be able to take an audio tour of the facility, which evokes people’s memories of the old theater and celebrates the next phase in its history, and also visit an exhibition that explores the transformation of the facility. There will also be a digital sculpture that uses current technology to explore Shakespeare’s relevance in today’s world. As well, there will be performances of Peter Brook’s Love Is My Sin, performed by Natasha Parry and Michael Pennington.

The theaters’ first productions will be offered in February 2011. On the Royal Shakespeare stage, the company will offer David Farr’s staging of King Lear and Romeo and Juliet directed by Rupert Goold. In the Swan Theatre, the RSC will present Michael Boyd’s production of Antony and Cleopatra as well as productions of Hamlet, directed by Tarell Alvin McCraney, and The Comedy of Errors, directed by Paul Hunter, both of which have been created for young people. All of these pieces, as previously announced will play a season in London at the Roundhouse before arriving in Stratford.

In addition tothe company will present a new production of The Tempest, in a puppet version, directed by Peter Glanville, and performance workshops of Shakespeare’s poem The Rape of Lucrece, directed by Elizabeth Freestone, in the Swan.