RSC EXTENDS REACH ACROSS UK IN 2025
First Encounters with Shakespeare: The Tempest tours schools, theatres and town halls across England
A Midsummer Night’s Dream free broadcast to UK schools
Matilda The Musical embarks on second UK and Ireland tour
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Thousands of families, young people, teachers and communities will see the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) perform in their town or city next year as two productions – Matilda The Musical and an 80-minute version of The Tempest – tour the country. The Company has also announced that schools will be able to sign up for on demand access to its critically acclaimed 2024 production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream for one week in February 2025.
Bringing Shakespeare’s magical play into school halls, theatres and town halls across England, First Encounters: The Tempest is a fresh, abridged take on Shakespeare’s original text aimed at younger audiences aged 7-13 and those seeing Shakespeare for the first time. The creative team includes Aaron Parsons (Director and Movement), Aldo Vázquez (Set and Costume Designer) and Jack Drewry (Composer and Sound Designer). A team of RSC practitioners will also work with young people in the lead up to the tour to create special soundscapes to underscore the production.
Opening in Leamington Spa on 4 February 2025, the show will travel to RSC partner schools and theatres across the country including County Durham, Middlesbrough, Hartlepool, York, Hull, Bradford, Stratford-upon-Avon, Stoke-on-Trent, Birmingham, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Corby, Blackpool and Cumbria, culminating in Northampton on 10 May 2025. The tour of First Encounters: The Tempest is supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England, which makes it possible for the RSC to expand its tour to work in partnership with more places across England.
From 3 February, thousands more pupils can get their first taste of Shakespeare and live theatre when schools will have on demand access to A Midsummer Night’s Dream as part of the RSC’s free Schools’ Broadcast Programme. Eleanor Rhode’s 5-star 2024 production with Mathew Baynton as Bottom delighted audiences when it opened in Stratford-upon-Avon earlier this year and is set to enjoy a short run at the Barbican theatre in London this winter. The creative team includes Lucy Osborne (Set and Design) John Bulleid (Illusion Director and Designer), Matt Daw (Lighting Designer) Will Gregory (Composer) Pete Malkin (Sound Designer), Annie-Lunnette Deakin-Foster (Movement Director), Rachel Bown-Williams and Ruth Cooper-Brown (Fight and Intimacy Directors).
Also announced today, audiences around the country will get the chance to see the second major UK and Ireland tour of the RSC’s multi award-winning Matilda The Musical, opening in Leicester on 6 October 2025. Based on Roald Dahl’s best-selling novel with literacy and books at its heart, the show has already been seen by 12 million people across 100 cities worldwide. The musical will celebrate 15 years on stage when it opens at Leicester Curve in October 2025. It will then travel to Bradford, Liverpool, Plymouth, Sunderland, Edinburgh, and Manchester where it will run through March and April of 2026. Further tour dates will be announced next year.
Written by Dennis Kelly, with music and lyrics by Tim Minchin and developed and directed by Matthew Warchus, the production is designed by Rob Howell, with choreography by Peter Darling, orchestrations, additional music and musical supervision by Christopher Nightingale, lighting by Hugh Vanstone, sound by Simon Baker and special effects and illusions by Paul Kieve.
Further information about First Encounters: The Tempest can be found here
Further information about RSC Schools’ Broadcast programme can be found here
Further information about Matilda The Musical can be found here.
More information about the RSC and its Creative Learning and Engagement work can be found here.
ENDS
For further press information please contact: Jo Hammond: jo.hammond@rsc.org.uk, 07739 330294.
X: @TheRSC
Instagram: @thersc
Notes to Editors
The RSC is supported using public funding by Arts Council England
The work of the RSC is supported by the Culture Recovery Fund
The RSC is generously supported by RSC America
RSC £10 Tickets for 14-25s supported by TikTok
The work of the RSC Creative, Learning and Engagement department is generously supported by Paul Hamlyn Foundation, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, The Clore Duffield Foundation, Foyle Foundation, GRoW @ Annenberg, The Polonsky Foundation, The Thompson Family Charitable Trust, Halabi Thomaz Foundation, Stratford Town Trust,, John S Cohen Foundation, HDH Wills 1965 Charitable Trust, Noël Coward Foundation, Teale Charitable Trust, The Grimmitt Trust, Sir James Knott Trust, The Oakley Charitable Trust and Misses Barrie Charitable Trust
The tour of First Encounters: The Tempest is supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England
About the Royal Shakespeare Company
The Royal Shakespeare Company’s mission is to bring people together to experience stories that deepen our understanding of ourselves, each other and the world around us, and that bring joy. Shakespeare’s restless exploration of all of human nature is our inspiration and touchstone.
The Company’s roots lie in the bold vision of a local brewer, Edward Fordham Flower, who in 1879 established a theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon with his son Charles. The RSC as we know it today was formed by Sir Peter Hall, whose ambition was to produce new plays alongside those of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. We continue this today across our three permanent theatres in Stratford – the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, the Swan Theatre and The Other Place – and indeed online and around the globe. We believe everybody’s life can be enriched by culture and creativity. Our transformative Creative Learning and Engagement programmes reach over half a million young people and adults each year. We have collaborated with generations of the very best theatre makers and we continue to nurture the talent of the future.
About RSC Creative Learning and Engagement
The Creative Learning and Engagement team works in classrooms and with communities redefining how Shakespeare’s work, theatre, arts and heritage are learnt about, engaged with and made. Reaching over 1,000 schools a year the team creatively engage children, young people, teachers and life-long learners with the work of the RSC through a year-round, multiplatform programme of workshops, events, courses and resources. Through our Associate Schools Programme we work in long term partnership with over 280 schools and 16 regional theatres in areas of structural disadvantage across England to improve life chances and learning outcomes for children and young people.
About Matilda The Musical
The Royal Shakespeare Company’s Matilda The Musical premiered at the RSC’s Stratford-upon-Avon home in 2010, before transferring to the West End in October 2011, where it opened to rave reviews and awards. Matilda The Musical swept the board at the 2012 Olivier Awards, with a record-breaking seven awards, and won four Tony Awards and a Tony Honor for Excellence in the Theater for the four girls sharing the title role on Broadway. It has since toured North America, Australia, New Zealand, the UK and Ireland, South Africa and China and played its first non-English language production in Seoul, South Korea in 2018/19. In 2023, Matilda The Musical played for the first time in Japan. A new International Touring production opened in Tel Aviv in 2023 touring across Asia and the UAE and concluded its run in Abu Dhabi on 24 June 2024.
About Arts Council England
Arts Council England is the national development agency for creativity and culture. We have set out our strategic vision in Let’s Create that by 2030 we want England to be a country in which the creativity of each of us is valued and given the chance to flourish and where every one of us has access to a remarkable range of high-quality cultural experiences. From 2023 to 2026 we will invest over £467 million of public money from Government and an estimated £250 million from The National Lottery each year to help support the sector and to deliver this vision. This year the National Lottery will celebrate 30 years of supporting good causes in the United Kingdom through raising £49 billion and awarding over 690,000 individual grants since the first draw was held in 1994. Visit our website to learn more
