Royal Shakespeare Company to Drop Elizabethan Theater on Manhattan’s Upper East Side

 
Manhattan’s Park Avenue Armory is already known as the host to a handful of highbrow events each year including the annual arts show, antiques fairs, and, most famously, Marc Jacobs’ runway shows. But next year will bring a new level of culture and a whole new crowd to the gigantic Upper East Side convention space—England’s Royal Shakespeare Company will be visiting the site and they’re bringing their own theater with them. A collapsible, touring version of their own Elizabethan-era style performance space currently under construction in the company’s (and Shakespeare’s) home town of Stratford upon Avon, the stage will offer fantastic, period-accurate views of repertory RSC actors (the “farthest seat will be 49 feet away from the edge of the stage”) as they run through classics like “Antony and Cleopatra, “Julius Caesar,” “King Lear,” “As You Like It,” “The Winter’s Tale,” and “Romeo and Juliet”. The stand at the Armory, part of the Lincoln Center Festival, will run from July 6th, 2011 to August 14th of that year and include 44 actors, 23 musicians, and dozens of other administrative, technical, and other supporting staff. With 55,000 square feet of open space, the Armory may not be “a kingdom for a stage”, but it should have enough volume to squeeze it all in.

 
To visit the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford or take in one of their performances elsewhere, visit www.rsc.org.uk
 
The Park Avenue Armory
643 Park Avenue
New York, New York, U.S.A.
(212) 616-3930
www.armoryonpark.org
“Armory Show: A new work by Brennan Gerard and Ryan Kelly”
Will show at the Armory February 20th and 21st, 2010.
 
Images:
Top—An artist’s rendering of the RSC stage installed in the Park Avenue Armory, courtesy of the Lincoln Center Festival.
Bottom—Sam Troughton, right, Hannah Young, left, in an RSC production of “Julius Caesar”, photo by Ellie Kurttz, courtesy of the Lincoln Center Festival.