The Shakespeare Post

4 September 2008

Of the RSC’s participation in the Cultural Olympiad, Michael Boyd, Artistic Director said,

‘We are very lucky to have been given this major opportunity. A challenge that faced us after The Complete Works Festival 2006/07, was how to build on the excitement and relationships established during that very successful year. The World Shakespeare Festival gives us the chance to harness the legacy of what we achieved and go much deeper in our search for better and fresher ways of sharing Shakespeare’s stories with the world.

It proved impossible last time to collaborate with some of our most important colleagues in the UK, and already for the World Shakespeare Festival we will be joined by the National Theatre and Shakespeare’s Globe, which will be producing an ambitious international project as part of the Festival.

We are helping to make the Cultural Olympiad a truly national celebration by working out of the three homes of the RSC in Stratford-upon-Avon, Newcastle upon Tyne and London.

The ideas that are guiding our preparations for the Festival are simple:

- Shakespeare is no longer the cultural property of the British, and has become an extremely valuable and often urgent meeting place for humans to recognise each other from across the world.

- One of Britain’s great strengths has been its history of absorbing people, their language, and their cultures from all over the world. Our Festival will use Shakespeare to look at the life of the many nations now represented within Britishness.

- The World Wide Web is challenging our distinction between professional and non-professional in many areas of culture and the World Shakespeare Festival will bring our great native amateur theatre movement into an unprecedented dialogue with professional practice. We are all participants.

- British Theatre is in great health and there couldn’t be a better time to be showing the work of our industry to the world.

- We believe that an early and active engagement with Shakespeare’s plays is an empowering educational experience. The success of our Stand Up For Shakespeare campaign suggests that a lot of people agree with us. Our work with teachers will sit at the heart of the World Shakespeare Festival, and we will give students and teachers the chance to exchange work with their peers internationally.’