Royal Shakespeare Company

The RSC currently performs in the temporary 1,000 seat Courtyard Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon. The Courtyard Theatre will be the Company's main performance space until 2010 whilst the Royal Shakespeare Theatre is closed for transformation. As part of this project, the Swan Theatre is also closed. For more information on the transformation and why the RSC are making changes visit www.rsc.org.uk/transformation.

The Royal Shakespeare Company is one of the best known theatre companies in the world, operating under its present name since 1961. However the RSC's roots stretch back to the building of the first permanent theatre in Stratford.

In 1875, Charles Edward Flower, a Stratford brewer, launched an international campaign to build a theatre in the town of Shakespeare's birth. He donated the two-acre site. The Shakespeare Memorial Theatre was a Victorian Gothic building originally seating 711 people. It opened in 1879 with a performance of Much Ado About Nothing. Initially the season was 8 days in the spring. This was extended by a month long season which was added in 1910. Almost 50 years of excellence were recognised in 1925 by the granting of a Royal Charter. However, only a year later the theatre was destroyed by fire. Today, the Swan Theatre occupies all that remains of the original Victorian Memorial Theatre.

In 1932 the new Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, designed by Elizabeth Scott, was opened by the Prince of Wales. The date was 23rd April - Shakespeare's birthday. Over the next thirty years the Company continued to build its reputation, working with established Shakespearean actors, as well as nurturing new talent. Michael Redgrave, Ralph Richardson, John Gielgud, Peggy Ashcroft, Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier acted alongside new faces such as Richard Burton.

In 1960, Peter Hall formed the modern Royal Shakespeare Company and in 1961, the Memorial Theatre was renamed the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. Over the next thirty years the company continued to expand under a succession of visionary and creative Artistic Directors.The company set up a base in London and started a regular season in Newcastle Upon Tyne. It also started an annual UK Mobile Theatre tour. The Other Place and its London counterpart The Wharehouse opened in 1974 and 1977 respectively, to foster the work of contemporary writers. The 1986 season in Stratford saw the opening of another theatre. Built inside part of the shell of the Memorial Theatre that survived the 1926 fire, the Swan is a unique, modern theatre based on the design of the playhouses of Elizabethan England.