RSC All New Seasons

How I agree with you but with Erica Whyman our hands will be wringing and the community will replace front line actors. RSC has no real chance of greatness under current leadership. Blank sheet…..start again. Seriously,Icke. And Godwin won’t come near the place. Third rate everything.

One of those directors might be available to direct one production there as a freelance ? That's the limit of my ambition for the RSC. Rupert Goold, Tom Littler, Deborah Warner, surely one proper Shakespeare director might be available to have a go ? 

And so Erica Whyman begins,,,,,,,

Ah yes, just as someone here predicted, adult community groups acting in Henry VI. Well done whoever that was. 

Also one's heart somewhat sinks at the idea of setting Much Ado in the future. 

I used to go to quite a lot of amateur theatre and I enjoyed it but of course the key point was that I personally knew people in the cast. I saw Whyman's RSC "Dream" where she had the mechanicals played by local amateur groups. They were competent when I saw it but of course nowhere near as good as if she'd cast professional comic actors in the roles, so as an audience member not connected to the amateurs I wasn't sure what I was supposed to get out of the exercise. 

Local community involvement is a valid thing for local theatres to do now and again, for example the Almeida has done some limited low-profile work in that area. But for a national company to place it front and centre is dubious. Has NT ever done a main stage production with involvement from local residents in SE1 ? Has the Royal Opera House ? 

Are they angling at the National's Public Acts initiative ..

www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/about-the-national-theatre/our-national-work/public-acts

So disappointing and wrong-headed!

I go to amateur productions occasionally, usually because they're doing a play I might never get a chance to see otherwise. I don't want to see amateurs in an organisation that is part funded by taxpayers to be a world-renowned professional theatre company. What is the point? The way they could best benefit their community is by putting on multiple high class, unmissable productions that will boost tourism, not by half-heartedly reopening one theatre and inviting a few locals onto the stage. And it's a slap in the face for professional actors who have had so many months of closed theatres and lost income.

Very frustrating that there's nothing in the Swan. I wonder if they'll open it to touring productions if they're not interested in using it themselves. With the Swan still closed, there's not much incentive to do an overnight visit and spend money in the town. I'd be furious if I owned a business that relied on the Stratford tourist trade and was being fobbed off by 'community participation'.

If there are good reasons for their failure to re-open properly they need to be honest, e.g. if they are close to bankruptcy and can't afford to pay actors or the cost of multiple new productions. Organisations in receipt of public money should be far more transparent than this.

I'll probably see Much Ado because I thought Akiya Henry was very good as Lady Macduff and I'd like to see her in a lead Shakespearean role. Michael Balogun might be interesting, not sure about the director, but none are big enough names to create the kind of excitement we've seen around the Almeida's Macbeth or Young Vic's Hamlet. They are very unlikely to fill the theatre, which presumably will give them another excuse not to reopen the Swan if they find that visitors aren't keen to return. Meanwhile, the much-maligned NT is at least open, busy and with all three theatres up and running.

I've just looked up the RSC entry on the Charity Commission website. It says their mission is

"To conserve, advance and disseminate the dramatic heritage of Shakespeare and advance and improve the dramatic art in the UK and throughout the world; producing and presenting dramatic performances of all kinds and teaching, training and other educational activities. These objectives are achieved by the production of plays by Shakespeare, other classic playwrights and commissioning new work."

I hope the trustees, Arts Council and Charity Commission will be holding them to account, as they just aren't doing this, and seem bent on turning themselves into a community arts organisation. I'm a big supporter of arts subsidy, but in return I want to see excellence in the fulfilment of a clear mission statement. This is like a bunch of well-meaning local activists have taken charge of something they really aren't capable of understanding. I'm sure they are lovely people with good intentions, but what's needed is people with vision, ambition and the ability to bring in world-class actors and directors...

From the RSC perspective it doesn't bother me, if he's a good director get him in, they've got few enough of their own. ADs often have the right under their contracts to do a certain amount freelance work elsewhere - the most notorious example of this was Peter Hall who while supposedly full-time AD of the NT also was the AD of Glyndebourne, and also managed to fit in directing Wagner's Ring Cycle in Bayreuth one year. 

Of course maybe this is also part of succession planning by the RSC. 
 

I doubt his absence has made much difference here. There has never been a hint on reopening the Swan yet, so that's not surprising. The Henry's were always being trailed as coming back next year (but not the bit they did "in rehearsal"). Much Ado looks like a gap filler to keep something going between the Elephant and the Henrys, so this maybe the added bit. The use of non-professional casts has been trialled before as noted above. And as for their charitable status, they can easily evidence most of that even at the moment (it's remarkably easy to show how what you do can fit pretty much any broad categorisation) - the Charity Commission wouldn't care less as long as they don't do something that violates the agreed principles, such as if they suddenly decided to turn themselves into a musical theatre only showing Andrew Lloyd Weber productions.... I suspect given the weight they gave to it during lockdown, and still are now, that the educational stuff is the main basis for a large part of what they have promised ACE for example.

i think its now clear that RSC are a community and participation/education company. I think over past few years they have danced around this but reading full press release it is very clear that the mission is clear. I think it is wrong as we have lost the full throttle of world dynamic theatre but we need to accept it. Erica Whyman has always made her ideas clear and to look at her Swan programming is to be left in no doubt at all.Shakespeare for the Nation-OK,perhaps but I dont really see much change coming-we have other preoccupations in our lives.Great for the amateurs and children participating but not really worth the trip to Stratford to see a hybrid Am/Pro production.

RSC want to be the force for change.....they have totally succeded here as ,from being a life long lover of the company and its work,I no longer want to see the work or support them through Friends or Membership schemes.They wont care -I am not their 'wanted demographic'.....Its a poor,predictable and engineered season that fails to excite or celebrate any return of RSC.

Of course-good luck in the new mission and no one doubts the importance of education...but many really great teachers have been doing this for years without the paternal hand of RSC Education.When you look back at the great work of the past,a mix of anger and sorrow at the awful waste of opportunities from RSC. They are a pretty good regional education offer but no longer the jewel in the crown.

I dont even think ACE can be blamed for what has happened.

For those on this theatreboard who still have time for RSC I apologize and hope you will get something from them in the year ahead to stimulate and excite.....Elephant is Love and we are all chilled.
I am not.

Tennant seems the obvious one to play Richard 3rd. Maybe waiting for his availability.