RSC Stratford-upon-Avon New Season

RSC Stratford-upon-Avon New Season

The stage and auditorium of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre are to be radically redesigned for the Summer Festival 2001. Theatre designer Alison Chitty will create a single aesthetic, which will be shared by the three main house Shakespeare productions this season. Alison's design will expand and raise the acting area across the entire width of the theatre. Shakespeare's"Hamlet", "Twelfth Night (or What You Will)" and "Julius Caesar ", will all share this new space, which will see the productions stripped back to the first principles of staging, enhancing the direct communication between the actor and the audience. The re-examination of the Stratford playing spaces has contributed to some of the most interesting theatre design dynamics in the Company's recent history.

In the Royal Shakespeare Theatre......

"HAMLET"
By William Shakespeare
Directed by Steven Pimlott
Starring SAMUEL WEST as 'Hamlet'
Designed by Alison Chitty
Lighting by Peter Mumford
Music by Jason Carr
Sound by Matt McKenzie
Fights by Malcolm Ranson
Previews from 31 March 2001
Opens:  2 May 2001

"TWELFTH NIGHT, OR WHAT YOU WILL "
By William Shakespeare
Directed by Lindsay Posner
Starring GUY HENRY as 'Malvolio'
Designed by Ashley Martin-Davis
Lighting by Pat Collins
Music by Gary Yershon
Sound by Mic Pool
Movement by Jane Gibson
Previews from 13 April 2001
Opens: 10 May 2001

"JULIUS CAESAR"
By William Shakespeare
Directed by Edward Hall
Designed by Michael Pavelka
Lighting by Ben Ormerod
Music by Simon Slater
Sound by Matt McKenzie
Previews from 13 July 2001
Opens: 26 July 2001

In the Swan Theatre.........

"KING JOHN"
By William Shakespeare
Directed by Gregory Doran
Starring GUY HENRY as 'King John'
Designed by Stephen Brimson Lewis
Lighting by Tim Mitchell
Sound by Martin Slavin
Previews from 21 March 2001
Opens: 28 March 2001

"LOVE IN A WOOD"
By William Wycherley
Directed by Tim Supple
Costumes designed by Sue Willmington
Set devised by Sue Willmington and Tim Supple
Lighting by Tina McHugh
Music by Adrian Lee
Previews from 12 April 2001
Opens: 19 April 2001
A scabrous comedy of duplicity, desperation, danger and delight - in an amoral London society on the make.

"JUBILEE"
By Peter Barnes
Directed by Gregory Doran
Designed by Robert Jones
Lighting by Tim Mitchell
Sound by Martin Slavin
Previews from 12 July 2001
Opens: 19 July 2001
Set in eighteenth century London and Stratford-upon-Avon, "Jubilee" mischievously satirises the founding of the whole Shakespeare industry. In 1769, when David Garrick staged the first theatre festival to celebrate the life of Stratford's most famous son, little did he realise the impact this would have on the future livelihood of the small Warwickshire market town. Peter Barnes' ironic and irreverent new comedy dissects the cult of the theatrical personality, from Shakespeare to Garrick and with a few recognisable modern-day characters thrown in.

In the Other Place

"A RUSSIAN IN THE WOODS"
By Peter Whelan
Directed by Robert Delamere
Designed by Simon Higlett
Previews from 21 March 2001
Opens: 29 March 2001
Amongst the ruins of post War Berlin, a young soldier is sent for a weekend to guard a deserted British Army office. In the corrosive atmosphere of Cold War power struggles, he innocently finds himself caught up in a situation where his conscience is on trial.

"THE LIEUTENANT OF INISHMORE"
By Martin McDonagh
Directed by Wilson Milam
Previews from 11 April 2001
Opens: 18 April 2001
A wicked black comedy on the taboo subjects of cruelty to animals and Irish paramilitaries, "The Lieutenant of Inishmore" is at once shocking and farcical, yet also devastating in its dissection of The Troubles.

THE PRISONER'S DILEMMA
By David Edgar
Directed by Michael Attenborough
Designed by Es Devlin
Lighting by Howard Harrison
Sound by John Leonard
Previews from 11 July 2001
Opens: 18 July 2001
An epic dramatisation of attempts to resolve a bloody conflict on Europe's Eastern border, "The Prisoner's Dilemma" is the third of David Edgar's plays about the aftermath by the fall of the Berlin Wall.