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Post by cavocado on Oct 19, 2021 13:15:49 GMT
The patron's newletter states that the Swan needs stabilising work on the roof and will thus remain closed until January 2023 What a shame they didn't think to get the builders in over the last 18 months. |
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Post by Jan on Oct 19, 2021 13:49:54 GMT
They did the Henry VI plays in 2000-2001. Here's their Summer Season (March-October) in 2001. Jesu, the days that we have seen.
RST
Hamlet
Twelfth Night
Julius Caesar
SWAN
King John
Love in a Wood (Wycherley)
Jubilee (Peter Barnes)
THE OTHER PLACE
A Russian in the Woods (Peter Whelan)
The Lieutenant of Inishmore (Martin McDonagh)
The Prisoners Dilemma (David Edgar)
ON TOUR
The Tempest
A Servant of Two Masters (Goldini)
BARBICAN
The Rivals
Tantalus (Peter Hall/John Barton)
PIT
Richard II
Henry IV Pt 1
Henry IV Pt 2
Henry V
Back to Methuselah (Shaw)
A set of 4 new plays
YOUNG VIC
The Thoughts of Joan of Arc on the English as She Burns at the Stake (David Farr)
Henry VI Part 1
Henry VI Part 2
Henry VI Part 3
Richard III
ALDWYCH
The Secret Garden (musical)
PALACE THEATRE
Les Miserables
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Post by Jan on Oct 19, 2021 14:03:27 GMT
Just as a footnote to that their ACE grant in 2001 was £9.2 million. Accounting for inflation that is equivalent to £15.6 million in 2021. Their actual ACE grant in 2021 is £15 million. So, their funding has remained static in real terms over the period.
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Post by Dawnstar on Oct 19, 2021 15:52:13 GMT
such as if they suddenly decided to turn themselves into a musical theatre only showing Andrew Lloyd Weber productions.... That might actually get me to want to go to Stratford! Unlike futuristic-set Much Ados & community participation projects. |
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Post by Phantom of London on Oct 19, 2021 18:56:24 GMT
Nothing to tickle the taste buds here, when the RSC say they're going to struggle to get an audience back, they put on obscure plays.
It pales into comparison to that glorious 2000-2001 season. I would be doing many trips to Stratford.
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Post by NeilVHughes on Oct 19, 2021 21:10:11 GMT
Not the most inspiring of seasons, getting to the point where the weekend break in Stratford Upon Avon is more enticing than the plays.
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Post by oxfordsimon on Oct 19, 2021 21:58:33 GMT
Stratford Town centre has really suffered over the past couple of years.
The lack of activity from the RSC and Shakespeare Birthplace Trust has done real harm.
A weekend in Stratford is now a lot less viable
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Post by cavocado on Oct 20, 2021 8:11:59 GMT
Stratford Town centre has really suffered over the past couple of years. The lack of activity from the RSC and Shakespeare Birthplace Trust has done real harm. A weekend in Stratford is now a lot less viable This is what is so frustrating. The RSC is seeing community engagement as about getting locals involved in putting on plays. That's fun, and perhaps even life-changing, for a small number of people, but I'd bet the majority of people in the area would prefer the RSC to step up to the plate economically and provide the kind of programming and quality that sells a lot of tickets and brings in visitors. That seems such a no-brainer because it makes audiences happy too. It's just bewildering that they don't seem to see the bigger picture where their dreary programming, declining reputation, failure to fully re-open and lack of focus on audiences means many of those locals they're engaging with will lose their jobs and businesses. And who wants to spend a couple of days in a run down town with boarded up shops? So the RSC sells fewer tickets because Stratford is less appealing, and the town declines futher... Can someone explain why people who run theatre companies are usually (always?) working directors? I can see how that makes sense with a small company, or where a director has those additional skills, but in a large company wouldn't it make more sense to have it led by a producer figure who understands theatre but also the business aspect and is focused on the company as a whole? I think it needs some kind of visionary intervention to turn things around here, with someone who is passionate about revitalising the programme and employing the best directors and actors, but not necessarily a creative themselves. Maybe theatre companies are too focused on an outdated structure which isn't fit for purpose any more? |
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Post by Jan on Oct 20, 2021 8:52:24 GMT
Can someone explain why people who run theatre companies are usually (always?) working directors? I can see how that makes sense with a small company, or where a director has those additional skills, but in a large company wouldn't it make more sense to have it led by a producer figure who understands theatre but also the business aspect and is focused on the company as a whole? That is one of my problems with Norris at NT, I don't think he's a great producer (of other people's work), not like Peter Hall or Nicholas Hytner. On the other hand Trevor Nunn was only an OK producer but got by at RSC and NT by being a brilliant director and doing an insane amount of work himself. Rather surprisingly to me Greg Doran has turned out to be a really terrible producer - literally the worst any major company has had - is not the slightest bit interested in "the company" (he has explicitly said that) and the quality of his own direction has been in decline since he took over. I wonder how long ACE will allow this situation to continue. For example it appears now they will only have a single theatre operating throughout 2022 ? When they closed the Other Place as part of their RST redevelopment in 2010 they promised it would be re-opened but it never has been. So they have no studio space suitable for new plays and so do virtually none. This is plainly contrary to part of their remit, but it seems no-one at ACE is bothered. Look at that Other Place season I posted above for 2001 - they simply couldn't stage that now and apparently have no interest in doing so. |
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Post by lynette on Oct 21, 2021 15:57:01 GMT
Can someone explain why people who run theatre companies are usually (always?) working directors? I can see how that makes sense with a small company, or where a director has those additional skills, but in a large company wouldn't it make more sense to have it led by a producer figure who understands theatre but also the business aspect and is focused on the company as a whole? That is one of my problems with Norris at NT, I don't think he's a great producer (of other people's work), not like Peter Hall or Nicholas Hytner. On the other hand Trevor Nunn was only an OK producer but got by at RSC and NT by being a brilliant director and doing an insane amount of work himself. Rather surprisingly to me Greg Doran has turned out to be a really terrible producer - literally the worst any major company has had - is not the slightest bit interested in "the company" (he has explicitly said that) and the quality of his own direction has been in decline since he took over. I wonder how long ACE will allow this situation to continue. For example it appears now they will only have a single theatre operating throughout 2022 ? When they closed the Other Place as part of their RST redevelopment in 2010 they promised it would be re-opened but it never has been. So they have no studio space suitable for new plays and so do virtually none. This is plainly contrary to part of their remit, but it seems no-one at ACE is bothered. Look at that Other Place season I posted above for 2001 - they simply couldn't stage that now and apparently have no interest in doing so. Couple of things. Don’t know what you mean by ‘company’? GD was overwhelmingly concerned to keep people on since pandemic started. The first thing out of his mouth is always about the company so where did he say this, Jan? I’ve always found him most considerate of the support staff, ones you see and ones you don’t. Secondly the two musicals they have put on, the Dress and now the Elephant are new works, whether you like them or not. (I’d didn’t like the Dress, not sure the Elephant is for me but we’ll see.) we have three big Shakespeares now scheduled from January. It was frustrating not having more online last year and goodness knows that they are doing with the Swan that will take a year but access has always been terrible and even ‘able’ people fall down the steps into the seating area, designed before this kind of thing mattered so I’m hoping for some better seating, maybe a teensy bit more room… |
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Post by Jan on Oct 22, 2021 6:43:58 GMT
Couple of things. Don’t know what you mean by ‘company’? GD was overwhelmingly concerned to keep people on since pandemic started. The first thing out of his mouth is always about the company so where did he say this, Jan? When he took over (was it 2013 ?) he literally said it, he said there would be much more emphasis on "Shakespeare" and less emphasis on "Company" (so on that occasion it wasn't the first thing out of his mouth). It was such an odd thing to say I remembered it, the interview must be out there somewhere. But it turned out to be true - he's never formed a company in the sense of a group of actors and directors who work together on multiple productions over several seasons. Can you name a single actor who has made their reputation at the RSC over his tenure ? Which directors apart from him have directed the most productions over his tenure ? I bet you can't - but those were easy questions to answer for every one of his predecessors. There is no "company" in the artistic sense, if by "company" you mean his 1000 backstage staff then maybe. |
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Oct 22, 2021 11:12:27 GMT
I remember that. I attended some kind of launch event (at iirc the Shakespeare Institute? I don’t know why it was there and not at the RSC itself) when Doran was first appointed, where he gave his first speech about his plans for his tenure. I remember him explaining the whole thing about the plan to do all 37 plays in six years but that the marketing people were making him say 5 years, and I remember the whole thing about how previously the emphasis had been on the C in RSC and his emphasis would be on the S.
I guess it’s “Company” in terms of “ensemble”. Previously the RSC had an actual “acting company” where an ensemble of actors would commit to the RSC for a long period. Traditionally if you joined the RSC you’d sign a three year or a one year contract and it’d be a long term job and comprehensive Shakespeare training. Of course certain actors like David Tennant would join as a one-off (though I think DT was part of a longer term RSC ensemble pre-fame) but most of the actors were on a longterm contract and acted in most of the plays. Since Doran, of course they are still a company in the wider sense of everyone who works there, but they don’t have a specific “acting company” but instead cast each production individually. The old way was more like the rep system, I guess.
Personally I liked the idea of having a long term ensemble but I can also understand that there are practical and creative problems with that model.
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Post by Jan on Oct 22, 2021 11:19:48 GMT
One thing he also spoke about in his first interviews was what great plans they had for the Other Place when it reopened. It never did.
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Post by altamont on Oct 22, 2021 12:21:19 GMT
One thing he also spoke about in his first interviews was what great plans they had for the Other Place when it reopened. It never did. Yes it did - from 2016 up to March last year, when COVID hit... www.rsc.org.uk/your-visit/the-other-place |
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Post by Someone in a tree on Oct 22, 2021 13:01:55 GMT
I remember that. I attended some kind of launch event (at iirc the Shakespeare Institute? I don’t know why it was there and not at the RSC itself) when Doran was first appointed, where he gave his first speech about his plans for his tenure. I remember him explaining the whole thing about the plan to do all 37 plays in six years but that the marketing people were making him say 5 years, and I remember the whole thing about how previously the emphasis had been on the C in RSC and his emphasis would be on the S. I guess it’s “Company” in terms of “ensemble”. Previously the RSC had an actual “acting company” where an ensemble of actors would commit to the RSC for a long period. Traditionally if you joined the RSC you’d sign a three year or a one year contract and it’d be a long term job and comprehensive Shakespeare training. Of course certain actors like David Tennant would join as a one-off (though I think DT was part of a longer term RSC ensemble pre-fame) but most of the actors were on a longterm contract and acted in most of the plays. Since Doran, of course they are still a company in the wider sense of everyone who works there, but they don’t have a specific “acting company” but instead cast each production individually. The old way was more like the rep system, I guess. Personally I liked the idea of having a long term ensemble but I can also understand that there are practical and creative problems with that model. And now we have neither the S or the C |
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Post by Jon on Oct 22, 2021 13:58:22 GMT
There aren't many artistic directors who are not either directors or actors in the UK, only the Menier and the Turbine comes to mind and it would be interesting to see the RSC go for someone who comes from a producing background rather than a director.
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Post by oxfordsimon on Oct 22, 2021 14:29:41 GMT
We certainly don't want an actor becoming Artistic Director.
You need to be an experienced manager of people and ideas. Skills that most actors don't have the opportunity of developing.
An established director would be fine as long as they stepped back from directing for their term of office so they can concentrate on running the company. And sign an agreement not to employ any close relatives.
The age of nepotism in the arts has to be brought to an end.
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Post by Jan on Oct 22, 2021 14:39:42 GMT
One thing he also spoke about in his first interviews was what great plans they had for the Other Place when it reopened. It never did. Yes it did - from 2016 up to March last year, when COVID hit... www.rsc.org.uk/your-visit/the-other-placeI was aware that some years (not all) they had some sort of short festival there for few weeks in the summer involving their community stuff and so on, but it’s never fully opened for a full season of new plays has it ? I mean a season like they do in the Swan or RST ? |
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Post by jay on Oct 30, 2021 15:15:28 GMT
The RSC is a shadow of its former self. One of the main reasons is the deliberate choosing of middle-ranking, ineffectual directors. Why is this? It always stems back to the Artistic Director trying to secure and maintain their position as 'best director', so avoiding any directors who would pose a threat to them. It happened under Doran, Boyd and Noble. Also add into to the mix the avoidance of any actors with extensive Shakespeare experience who can and would challenge some directorial decisions. This goes someway to explain the almost complete absence of older actors with much RSC experience behind them. Back in the 1990's the company had a great range of vastly experienced older guys often playing smaller but crucial roles - giving productions real weight and heft. That tradition was effectively dismantled by Boyd ( with hardly any Shakespeare experience under his directorial belt when he took over as AD) and replaced by a group of much younger actors on a 3 year contract. All thrilled to be given such a long stint of employment , they were unlikely to rock the boat. This also goes some way to explain why some younger actors had a huge range of leading roles thrown at them ( I'm thinking of Jonathan Slinger. Take a look at the range of parts Boyd gave him - Hamlet, Richard II, Richard III, Prospero, etc etc. A decent enough actor, but in no way ready to really inhabit those great challenges).
So the company alienates the young, promising director, avoids the older actor with an enviable classical CV, and what are you left with?
The only way it seems that they can proceed and tick all the arts council boxes is to go down the route of a high end educational and community resource.
Yes, the company still operates a high-profile West End product from time to time - but giving a novelist and an actor the script-writing challenge as in The Mirror & The Light - and not an established playwright- it's not surprising that the show doesn't garner universal praise, fails to sell seats and has it's run cut short.
Doran - personal issues aside- should step down and the board should appoint a director with a real vision for the company, that builds on it's great traditions and embraces the new challenges of getting folk actually back into a theatre.
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Post by Jan on Oct 30, 2021 16:39:00 GMT
Back in the 1990's the company had a great range of vastly experienced older guys often playing smaller but crucial roles - giving productions real weight and heft. That tradition was effectively dismantled by Boyd ( with hardly any Shakespeare experience under his directorial belt when he took over as AD) I liked Boyd as a director and his history cycle was great. But his legacy is the disastrous thrust stage redevelopment of RST which means that designing productions there is a severely constrained thankless task which renders RST productions not only intensely static and boring to look at but also impossible to transfer properly to any other theatre - his contemptuous dismissal of criticism of this with "If you want to sit in the dark go to the cinema" is now a very dated view with younger directors like Robert Icke preferring cinematic-style productions with a distance between actors and audience, and Simon Godwin at the NT using big complicated frequently-changing sets, neither of which can be done in RST. |
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jay
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Post by jay on Oct 30, 2021 16:48:55 GMT
Back in the 1990's the company had a great range of vastly experienced older guys often playing smaller but crucial roles - giving productions real weight and heft. That tradition was effectively dismantled by Boyd ( with hardly any Shakespeare experience under his directorial belt when he took over as AD) I liked Boyd as a director and his history cycle was great. But his legacy is the disastrous thrust stage redevelopment of RST which means that designing productions there is a severely constrained thankless task which renders RST productions not only intensely static and boring to look at but also impossible to transfer properly to any other theatre - his contemptuous dismissal of criticism of this with "If you want to sit in the dark go to the cinema" is now a very dated view with younger directors like Robert Icke preferring cinematic-style productions with a distance between actors and audience, and Simon Godwin at the NT using big complicated frequently-changing sets, neither of which can be done in RST. I'd forgotten Boyd's legacy in terms of the building he left behind. Quite why there wasn't a huge stink at the announcement of his plans ( or maybe there was , and I missed it?), the reasoning behind having two thrust stages back-to-back in Stratford, the severe design limitations of a thrust stage , the limited possibilities of staging scenes ( try convincing an actor that he really is in strong position to deliver an important speech with his back to 40% of the audience) and the ramifications of transferring a thrust production to a London proscenium stage. He inflicted that on the company and promptly sailed into complete directorial oblivion on his exit from the RSC. |
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Post by lynette on Oct 30, 2021 17:49:30 GMT
Anyone remember Boyd’s Russian season? Thought not… his tenure was not successful. Shakespeare was definitely sacrificed to his ideas about theatre…whatever they were.
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Post by Cleo on Nov 10, 2021 7:52:02 GMT
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Post by Jan on Nov 10, 2021 8:55:12 GMT
The one bit of his Russian season that was announced that I was interested in never happened - the major co-production with a Russian theatre of Chekhov or another major Russian classic. A very depressing interview there: "With The Magician’s Elephant open, we have four productions running across the country and we have all our education work going on so actually it is a very big RSC now." In what possible sense is having Matilda plus Mirror and the Light and two in-house productions "very big" ? Leaving aside Covid it's more or less absolutely the smallest they've ever been. Also the bit about not writing to the papers to complain about their programming but to contact them directly. They never reply ! |
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Post by cavocado on Nov 10, 2021 15:38:12 GMT
"Q...how long do you think it will take to get the RSC back to where it was pre-pandemic?
A Ooh! Pick a year! Probably into 2023, it might take until that time to get all the theatres up and running again"
How depressing and unprofessional. Pick a year? 2023? Why can't they just do their jobs like the rest of us FFS? They are paid, partly by the state, to run a large theatre company. I think this article at least makes it very clear that they don't think that aspect of their role matters very much. Maybe 'the RSC' should be given an appropriate budget and a church hall somewhere to indulge its new role as a small scale community and educational organisation, and a new visionary and creative team could be hired to set up a new company in the Stratford theatres. Just somebody get on and use the theatres for what they were intended and funded: multiple high quality productions running simultaneously.
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