The Royal Shakespeare Company

The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) today is probably one of the best-known theatre companies in the world, playing regularly to audiences of more than a million a year in its home bases of Stratford-on-Avon and London, and to many thousands more throughout the UK and abroad. The Royal Shakespeare Company has operated under the present title since 1961 but the history of theatre in Stratford goes back beyond that to building of the first permanent theatre there. In 1875 Charles Edward Flower, a local brewer, launched a national campaign to build a theatre in Shakespeare’s birthplace, his own donation of the now famous two-acre site beginning a family tradition of generosity to the theatre, which continues today.

The Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, a Victorian Gothic building, seating 800 people, opened in 1879 with a performance Much Ado About Nothing. Almost fifty years of excellence was recognized in 1925 by granting of a Royal Charter. Only a year later, the theatre was almost completely destroyed by the fire, and a worldwide campaign was launched to build a new theatre. In 1932 the present building, designed by Elisabeth Scott, was opened by Prince of Wales on 23 April, and traditionally held to Shakespeare’s birthday.

The Royal Shakespeare Theatre is the flagship of the Royal Shakespeare Company – a place of pilgrimage for overseas visitors, along with the Birthplace. The theatre is more than a shrine of bricks and mortar: Shakespeare is very much alive here; the RSC is dedicated to interpreting his plays in a way which “relates” to modern audiences, particularly to young people, the theatre goers of the future. The RSC holds 1500 people.

The Swan is the RSC’s second theatre in Stratford. Built in the style of an Elizabethan playhouse, the theatre has been created within the shell of the original Shakespeare Memorial Theatre which was all but destroyed by the fire in 1926.The Swan seats 430 people in tiered galleries on three sides of a deep thrust stage. Popular plays which once packed London’s Bankside playhouses are staged here: plays by Shakespeare and his great contemporaries, Restoration drama, and plays by modern playwrights.

The Other Place, a small theatre 5 minutes walk away, seats 250 people in intimate surroundings. As before, new plays and classics are staged there. Educational and training projects are a feature of the Other Place.

The RSC’s London home is the Barbican Centre in the City. At the Barbican Theatre the company presents Shakespeare productions transferred from Stratford-on-Avon as well as classics and modern plays.

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