Royal Shakespeare Company

The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) is a British theatre company. It is located primarily at Stratford-upon-Avon, with bases also in London, and Newcastle and is one of the two most prominent publicly-subsidised funded theatre companies in the United Kingdom, alongside London's Royal National Theatre. The RSC's history dates back to Wednesday, 23 April 1879 when the newly completed Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon staged its first production, Much Ado About Nothing, whose title gave ammunition to several critics. The Memorial, a red brick Gothic cathedral, designed by Dodgshun and Unsworth of Westminster, was unkindly described by Bernard Shaw as “an admirable building, adaptable to every purpose except that of a theatre.” But under the direction of William Bridges-Adams The theatre received a Royal Charter of Incorporation in 1925, which gave it a certain status. But this was short-lived because on the afternoon of 6 March 1926, when a new season was about to... full article at wikipedia