Shakespeare Nation
Shakespeare is for everyone.
Throughout the year, in collaboration with the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), we will write, sing, move, and create together a bold new production performed this autumn, telling the untold stories of our communities.
We are reaching out to communities around the county and creating opportunities for people to discover the relevance of Shakespeare’s stories to their lives today. Shakespeare Nation is a collaboration between Norwich Theatre and RSC. Funded by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation.
Past Projects
Year One: A Tale of Many Cities, 2019
Norwich Theatre’s response to the RSC’s title Romeo and Juliet was to call the project A Tale of Many Cities – a reflection of our fine city and collaboration with the local refugee, student, academic, and vulnerable young adults communities.
The make-up of Norwich has always been changing. The city has always welcomed visitors from afar. The city’s population is as diverse as ever, and its diversity will continue to grow. At the time of the project, the political climate meant day-to-day conversations meandered around immigration, Brexit and the unknown for the future and how we, as the UK, will fit in and be perceived by the rest of the world. Yet Norwich could proudly boast itself as a welcoming city. Norwich Theatre wanted the project to reflect this.
Year Two: Brave New World, 2020
Year Three: A Carnival of Errors, 2021
A Carnival of Errors explores our own city’s response to the themes of Shakespeare’s play The Comedy of Errors – community, identity, power-play, and corruption.
Year Four: Julius Caesar, 2023
Julius Caesar, Shakespeare’s great political tragedy, is the perfect play for our age of crisis, asking questions about how far we’d go to shift power. This production explored what really makes a leader, as well as inviting questions about gender and power.
Working closely with local Music Director Xenia Horne and RSC practitioners, our chorus developed their creative skills while exploring the nature of what makes a good leader today. The hope is that this chorus of community champions will continue to inform and challenge the work of Norwich Theatre and the RSC beyond the production. Working with people who lead for their community and understand the needs they serve is invaluable in the Nation project’s mission to ensure the work is relevant to those we create it with and for.
Through workshops and masterclasses, our Community Chorus explored voice and movement to create an elemental, tribal force, haunting Rome; evoking destruction and a spiritual, environmental reckoning beyond the story in the play.
