Updated 6th January 2013. Thanks to updates from RSC long ensemble audience members. After I saw Debbie Korley and Dharmesh Patel in the RSC’s young people’s King Lear at the Theatre Royal in York recently, I started to wonder what the rest of the RSC’s long ensemble were dong now. I had seen some of…
I decided to go to the three new plays at the Hampstead Theatre, as part of the RSC long ensemble project. To do this required some complex travel arrangements and a hit on my budget. I’d been watching this long ensemble for three years, and really wanted to see their final performances together on British…
Read more Little Eagles, Silence, and American Trade (Hampstead Theatre)
When anyone says that they were at that last night of Wigan Casino, I always wanted to know what it was like, because being there on such a momentous occasion seemed really special. For example, I was fascinated to know how did it feel when the three before eight played for the last time? I…
Read more Being there when…Was I at the opening of the RST this time?
23rd February 2011. The RSC are coming home. There is no fanfare or long speeches, but there is an energetic buzz moving across the audience for the Royal Shakespeare Company’s first night in the new Royal Shakespeare Theatre. This was what they called a soft opening. Nearly 7:15 pm Edgar (Charles Aitken) is already on stage. I…
On the 15th October matinée, Katy Stephens (text in hand) took on the role of Cleopatra in the RSC Antony and Cleopatra when Kathryn Hunter ‘was indisposed’. Though for most of the scenes Katy Stephens held the book in her hand, she only looked at the script now and again to remind herself of odd lines. I felt…
Read more Antony and Cleopatra. Part 2 (Theatre Royal Newcastle, 15th October 2010)
When I saw Antony and Cleopatra in Stratford, I felt that Artistic Director, Michael Boyd’s vision of the RSC ensemble and how it should be put into reality seemed to come to fruition in the production. The house lights are up for most of the production creating a real awareness of the audience watching. The vomitaria are used a lot…
Julie Raby 