Royal Shakespeare Company

Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), a British repertory theater. The company, established in 1960, was based on the earlier Shakespeare Memorial Theatre at Stratford-on-Avon. It is a national theater supported by government funds. The RSC, under a 2002 reorganization, is based in Stratford, where it operates several venues and an academy for the training of classical actors; it also sponsors a variable number of small acting companies, which present Shakespearean and modern plays in Stratford, London, and other locations. From 1982 to 2002 the RSC was based also at the Barbican Theatre, London, and at the Aldwych Theatre prior (1960–82) to that. In London the RSC has mounted such plays as Ondine, Becket, Marat/Sade, and The Caucasian Chalk Circle. Artistic directors and codirectors have included Peter Hall (1960–68), Trevor Nunn (1968–86), Terry Hands (1978–91), Adrian Noble (1991–2003), and Michael Boyd (2003–).

Bibliography

See studies ed. by J. Goodwin (1964) and M. Kustow et al. (1968).

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Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC)

Major British theatrical company. It was originally attached to the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon, which opened in 1879 as the site of an annual festival of William Shakespeare's plays. The resident company was called the Shakespeare Memorial Company until 1961, when it was renamed and reorganized into two units, one to play at Stratford and the other to be based in London. The Stratford unit performs plays by Shakespeare and other Elizabethan and Jacobean playwrights, while the London unit, based at the Barbican arts complex, also performs modern plays and classics of other eras.