New Yorker Chic

Great news for Shakespeare fans in New York next year! Lincoln Center Festival and Park Avenue Armory, in association with The Ohio State University will bring the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) to New York in July and August 2011 for an unprecedented six-week residency.

For the first time in its history of visiting the United States, the RSC will perform five of Shakespeare’s plays in repertory, for 45 performances from July 6 through August 14, 2011, in a thrust-stage auditorium bringing actors and audiences closer together. The RSC’s theater technicians are building a full-scale replica of the award-winning Courtyard Theatre where the Company currently performs. The Courtyard Theatre is acting as a prototype for the transformation of the historic Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon, due to reopen in late 2010.

This will be the only opportunity for American audiences to see this ensemble, whose members will have worked together for three intense years by the time they arrive in New York. The ensemble has been assembled by Michael Boyd, who makes his debut in New York City as RSC Artistic Director. Five plays will be selected from the Company’s U.K. repertoire from 2009 and 2010: Antony and Cleopatra, As You Like It, Julius Caesar, King Lear, Romeo and Juliet, and The Winter’s Tale. The residency will also be supported by an extensive education program, developed by the RSC, using Shakespeare to inspire the imagination and creativity of young people.

Information on advance guaranteed access to tickets (available by joining the Executive Producers, Producers, or Supporters Circle) will be available later in February. For more information on these programs email Shakespeare2011@lincolncenter.org or call Alison Koczanski, 212-875-5739. All other tickets will go on sale in the spring of 2011. Visit Lincoln Center’s website, www.LincolnCenterFestival.org for ticket details.