The Royal Shakespeare Company, a charity theatre company based in Stratford-upon-Avon that makes Shakespeare and new plays, runs a large in-house costume workshop and tours across the UK.
The Royal Shakespeare Company, or RSC, is one of the best-known theatre companies in the world, and it makes its work in Stratford-upon-Avon, Shakespeare's birthplace. It has three theatres there: the Royal Shakespeare Theatre (about 1,060 seats), the Swan Theatre (about 469 seats) and The Other Place, a studio theatre of about 200 seats. It stages Shakespeare and his contemporaries alongside new writing. Its musical Matilda began at the RSC in 2010 before moving to the West End and Broadway. Since 2013 it has also broadcast productions live to cinemas and schools.
The RSC states its vision as "To inspire deeper human understanding through the power of theatre." Its five values are creative, collaborative, inclusive, sustainable and accountable. A strategy running to 2030 has five objectives: creative brilliance, reframing Shakespeare, skills and talent, financial resilience and transforming the RSC. Edward Fordham Flower, a Stratford brewer, set up a theatre in the town in 1879 with his son Charles, and Sir Peter Hall formed the RSC as it is today in 1961. Daniel Evans and Tamara Harvey have been joint artistic directors since June 2023.
The RSC's home is Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire, where the Royal Shakespeare and Swan theatres reopened in November 2010 after a major rebuild known as the Transformation. The company also performs in communities and schools across the country and around the world, and the Theatre Royal in Newcastle upon Tyne is described as its third home alongside Stratford and London. It had a London base at the Barbican from 1982 until 2002 but has no regular London home today. Its wider work reaches schools throughout the UK, and it says its creative learning programmes reach over half a million young people each year.
The RSC describes itself as aiming to be "a positive, supportive Company where everyone can thrive", which is its own claim. The company employed 1,205 people in 2019, according to Wikipedia, and has more than 1,000 staff overall, so it is a big employer in a market town. Its costume department is described as the largest in-house costume-making workshop in British theatre, and in 2021 the RSC raised over £8 million to update its costume and prop departments. Most props are made in a prop shop in Stratford.
That mix of workshops and stages means many kinds of job. Actors, directors and stage managers are the best-known roles, but the company also needs costume makers, wig makers, prop makers, carpenters, scenic artists, lighting and sound technicians, voice and movement coaches, and teams in learning, marketing, ticketing, front of house, fundraising and finance. If you like making and mending things, this is a theatre where craft skills are central. Its website lists current vacancies.
Website: www.rsc.org.uk
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