The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) has today released further details of its upcoming Summer 2023 programme which features four vivid and ambitious new play commissions, running in the Swan Theatre from July.
Two world stage premieres, a new co-commission with Watford Palace Theatre and HOME Manchester, and a timely revival of a 21st century classic are brought sharply into focus in 2023. These four plays offer fresh and, at times, radical new perspectives on well-known stories and the pervading political and cultural narratives that surround them.
The news follows the announcement of the re-opening of the Swan Theatre from 1 April 2023 with the world-premiere stage production of Hamnet, based on the award-winning novel by Maggie O’Farrell, adapted by Lolita Chakrabarti and directed by RSC Acting Artistic Director, Erica Whyman. Ticket availability for this production is now extremely limited.
The Company also announced the full performance schedule for its upcoming productions of As You Like It directed by Omar Elerian and Macbeth directed by Wils Wilson which will run in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre from Saturday 17 June – Saturday 5 August and Saturday 19 August – Saturday 14 October consecutively. They will be joined by the previously announced Hamlet, chosen by Next Generation Act, the RSC’s young company for talented young people from across the country from backgrounds under-represented in the arts. Hamlet, directed by Paul Ainsworth, will run in The Other Place from Friday 28 – Saturday 29 July 2023.
All Stratford-upon-Avon productions go on sale to the public on Monday 13 March, with priority booking available from Wednesday 1 March. Tickets for The Empress at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre are on sale from today (Tuesday 21 February).
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Erica Whyman, Acting Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) said:
‘This season is a celebration of the power of theatre and of stories we should have heard or should have listened to, but we haven’t dared.
‘We live in a volatile, fractious world. Shakespeare would have recognised its energy; he too knew a world of accelerating change, inventive and exhilarating, but also furious, divisive, unequal, uneasy. The RSC has always believed it essential to support and celebrate the living writers that have their fingers on this unease, who can expose new ways of seeing our history and conjure a brave new world that we don’t yet understand. Now more than ever it takes courage to speak these truths, as new cultural wars roar and mutter.
‘All four Swan productions are surprising, illuminating, strong of mind and big of heart. Falkland Sound by Brad Birch explores with compassion the human experience of the Islanders during the conflict, and the ferocious politics which informed the British response. The Empress by Tanika Gupta – now on the GCSE syllabus – presents an extraordinary friendship and a beautiful love story, whilst forensically exposing the blithe injustice of empire. Tracy-Ann Oberman’s Shylock in The Merchant of Venice 1936 is breathtakingly honest about the antisemitism described in the play and its new setting in 1930s Cable Street reveals a shameful slice of our history. And Cowbois by Charlie Josephine is a glorious unfolding of desire and hope – a Western like you’ve never seen it before – and an ingenious metaphor for the flowering of human potential that is possible when we can truly be ourselves.
‘The Swan has a long and distinguished history of staging expansive, thoughtful new plays alongside plays by Shakespeare and his contemporaries. It is an epic theatre in which you can create electric intimacy and a space in which to tell stories which really matter.’
Joining the previously announced As You Like It and Macbeth in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Live at the RSC returns from Wednesday 31 May – Sunday 4 June in association with Orchestra of the Swan and Underbelly.
The programme opens with a unique performance by Orchestra of the Swan who present Red Sky at Sunrise: Laurie Lee in Words & Music. Red Sky at Sunrise follows Lee’s extraordinary journey through his much-loved trilogy, Cider with Rosie, As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning, and A Moment of War, from growing up in Gloucestershire, to fighting with the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War. Laurie Lee is performed by Anton Lesser and Charlie Hamblett, with music from Orchestra of The Swan.
The festival also features appearances from British Comedy award-winning ventriloquist Nina Conti, award-winning comedian Mark Watson plus, direct from the West End, improvised comedy show; Austentatious inspired by the novels of Jane Austen.
The festival includes solo shows and mixed bill shows with performances from BBC New Comedy award-finalist Fern Brady, Edinburgh Comedy Award-nominee and star of Mock The Week, Live at The Apollo and 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown Jess Fostekew, Ivo Graham (the youngest ever winner of the prestigious So You Think You’re Funny award for new acts at the Edinburgh Fringe) and award-winning stand-up comedian Sarah Keyworth (Are You A Boy or A Girl, BBC Radio 4, Dark House, Amazon Prime) with further acts to be announced.
Tickets for the festival go on sale on Tuesday 11 April at 10am with further programming to be announced.
