Royal Shakespeare Company says more than 150 roles at risk due to pandemic | Stage

The Royal Shakespeare Company is to keep two of its theatres in Stratford-upon-Avon closed until 2022 and has begun a formal consultation process with its workforce, with more than 150 roles at risk.

While the RSC’s smaller stages, the Swan and the Other Place, will remain shut, the organisation is to reopen its Royal Shakespeare theatre for the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic closed venues in March. A number of yet-to-be-announced socially distanced performances in the theatre in December and January will be live-streamed. The RSC hopes to stage its postponed productions of The Winter’s Tale and The Comedy of Errors in the Royal Shakespeare theatre next year, as well as the previously announced musical The Magician’s Elephant, which is due to open in November 2021. The RSC also plans more free outdoor activity later this year, following its successful summer performances of sonnets and speeches in the Dell Gardens in Stratford. Full details of both indoor and outdoor performances are to be announced in November.

Gregory Doran, the RSC’s artistic director, said that the company’s financial position and uncertainty around future restrictions meant that they were focusing on reopening their largest theatre, which will also allow greater audience numbers. He stressed that the RSC wanted to not just welcome back audiences but also “help our regional and wider economy rebuild itself, bringing people back into our towns and cities”.

The RSC has said that 158 people are currently in roles at risk. Through voluntary redundancies and redeployment, the organisation hopes to keep the number of compulsory redundancies below 90 and, at most, make a 17% reduction in the workforce. The consultation is expected to conclude in December.

Catherine Mallyon, the RSC’s executive director, said: “These are incredibly difficult times for everyone, and for the theatre community they are especially tough. Our live performance sector is experiencing one of the highest levels of loss of work anywhere: the personal impact of this is often devastating; the loss of skilled and talented people permanently from our sector is a very real worry for the future; and the impact on the nation’s economy immense. We are today taking tough decisions to cut costs and make sure we can reopen with confidence.”

The RSC also plans to reopen its West End hit Matilda the Musical “as soon as it is financially viable”. A small number of West End productions have been announced for autumn and winter, though none is set to return a considerable profit due to operating at a reduced capacity.

In order to encourage audiences to return to the country’s beleaguered venues, a new scheme called See It Safely was announced on Tuesday by the Society of London Theatre (Solt) and UK Theatre. The scheme is designed to support venues as they reopen and give audiences confidence in how Covid safety measures have been implemented at those establishments. A See it Safely mark will be displayed by those venues that have signed up to a code of conduct.

Solt and UK Theatre said that although only a small proportion of British theatres had reopened, the response from returning audiences has been overwhelmingly positive, with many of the runs of new productions selling out and being extended.