What's On at the Royal Shakespeare Company at The Courtyard Theatre, Stratford upon Avon in 2010?
 |
The aim of the RSC is to keep modern audiences in touch with Shakespeare as our contemporary.
That means that as well as the work of Shakespeare and his contemporaries, our repertoire includes classic plays by international dramatists and work by living writers.
The Courtyard Theatre’s stage configuration will be a prototype for the redeveloped Royal Shakespeare Theatre. The Courtyard Theatre is the RSC’s main theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon while work on transforming the Royal Shakespeare Theatre is carried out.
When the development of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre is complete, The Courtyard Theatre will be dismantled and The Other Place will re-open as the RSC’s studio theatre.
King Lear directed by David Farr
Location: Courtyard Theatre, Stratford upon Avon
Start: 18 February 2010 | Ends: 26 August 2010
Website: King Lear
Toppled by pride and stripped of all status, King Lear heads into the wilderness with a fool and a madman for company.
Shakespeare's great tragedy peels away the trappings of society to reveal the unforgiving truth of the human condition. |
Romeo and Juliet directed by Rupert Goold
Location: Courtyard Theatre, Stratford upon Avon
Start: 12 March 2010 | Ends: 27 August 2010
Website: Romeo and Juliet
In the instant of a chance meeting two young people fall in love. Impulsively they marry in secret, but in a divided city their innocent union is threatened by a bloody family feud. Shakespeare vividly captures the beauty, intimacy and ultimate fragility of young love in a hostile world.
|
Antony and Cleopatra directed by Michael Boyd
Location: Courtyard Theatre, Stratford upon AVON
Start: 10 April 2010 | Ends: 28 August 2010
Website: Antony and Cleopatra
Two charismatic and powerful leaders find in each other an irresistible and yet unattainable equal.
Caught between desire and duty their affair will shake the foundations of the known world. Power politics and passion collide in Shakespeare's captivating tragedy. |
Hamlet edited by Tarell Alvin McCraney and Bijan Sheibani
Location: Courtyard Theatre, Stratford upon Avon
Start: 1 May 2010 | Ends: 11 September 2010
Website: Hamlet
Hamlet is a young man on the edge. His father's death was suspicious and his mother has hastily married his uncle, the man he suspects of murdering his father. Trapped in the claustrophobic court of Elsinore he must discover the truth and decide if he has a right to avenge his father.
RSC/CAPITAL International Playwright in Residence Tarell Alvin McCraney directs a new version of Hamlet. Edited by Tarell and Bijan Sheibani specifically for younger audiences, the production follows the success of Young People's Shakespeare The Comedy of Errors in 2009. |
Morte D'Arthur directed by Gregory Doran
Location: Courtyard Theatre, Stratford upon Avon
Start: 11 June 2010 | Ends: 28 August 2010
Website: Morte D'Arthur
Thomas Malory's Morte D'Arthur tells 'of the matter of England'. Written during the violent years of the Wars of the Roses, it reflects its time. The story of King Arthur's attempt to unite his country, blends myth and magic, from the sword in the stone to the establishment of the Round Table and the quest for the Holy Grail. It traces the adultery of Lancelot and Guinevere, and ultimately the death of the 'once and future king'. It is an often surprising and unexpected version of the familiar story, and the first great telling of the cycle in the English language.
|
The Winter's Tale directed by David Farr
Location: Courtyard Theatre, Stratford upon Avon
Start: 14 July 2010 | Ends: 2 September 2010
Website: The Winter's Tale
Leontes is the man with the perfect life. Powerful, wealthy and surrounded by a loving family he should be content, but instead he is ill at ease with the world around him. Isolated by a destructive jealousy, he lashes out at those closest to him, losing his wife and son and abandoning his daughter in distant Bohemia.
Sixteen years later, having grown up in a pastoral idyll, Leontes' daughter falls in love with a young visitor, setting in motion a chain of events that could eventually reunite their scattered family. |
As You Like It directed by Michael Boyd
Location: Courtyard Theatre, Stratford upon Avon
Start: 21 July 2010 | Ends: 4 September 2010
Website: As You Like It
When two young people fall in love they are unable to act on their impulse. Uncertain of their standing in court and fearing for their lives, Rosalind and Orlando are forced into exile in the Forest of Arden only to become entangled in a beguiling game of love, lust and mistaken identity.
One of Shakespeare's great comedies, As You Like It subverts the traditional rules of romance, confusing gender roles, nature and politics in a play that reflects on how bewildering yet utterly pleasurable life can be. |
Julius Caesar directed by Lucy Bailey
Location: Courtyard Theatre, Stratford upon Avon
Start: 28 July 2010 | Ends: 4 September 2010
Website: Julius Caesar
As Julius Caesar's strength and popularity look set to propel him to the imperial throne, those closest to him act to prevent what they fear will become a dictatorship. But the brutal assassination of one man unleashes a tide of violence that will drag thousands into a bloody civil war.
A masterpiece of political powerplay and manipulation, Julius Caesar examines the conflict between one man's ambition and the good of the state. |
The Comedy of Errors in association with Told by an Idiot. Edited by Gary Owen and directed by Paul Hunter
Location: Courtyard Theatre, Stratford upon Avon
Start: 7 August 2010 | Ends: 11 September 2010
Website: The Comedy of Errors
When two sets of identical twins with identical names are shipwrecked as infants their father can save only one of each set. Years later, one Antipholus and one Dromio arrive in Ephesus only to find that everyone there seems a little odd...
In association with acclaimed theatre company Told by an Idiot, and directed by Paul Hunter, The Comedy of Errors returns for a limited number of performances. |
