ROYAL SHAKESPEARE COMPANY ANNOUNCE RE-OPENING OF THE SWAN THEATRE WITH WORLD STAGE PREMIERE OF MAGGIE O’FARRELL’S HAMNET
Today (Tuesday 8 November), the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) and Neal Street Productions, in association with Hera Pictures, announce the world-premiere stage production of Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet adapted by Lolita Chakrabarti. The production will open in the newly refurbished Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon from Saturday 1 April 2023.
The story pulls back a curtain on the imagined life of William Shakespeare and the woman and family who influenced his work. The production will run for an eleven-week season with Press Night on Wednesday 12 April 2023. Priority booking will open from 10am on Wednesday 16 November with public booking opening at 10am on Tuesday 29 November.
Erica Whyman, Acting Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, said;
“I could not be more thrilled to be directing this adaptation of ‘Hamnet’. Maggie’s beautiful novel moved and inspired me in the darkest days of lockdown as it did for so many. It is high time we heard the compelling story of Agnes Hathaway and her children, voices that have been somewhat neglected, and who offer a wholly new perspective on ‘her Poet’.
“It has been a privilege to collaborate with Lolita and her adaptation is also a celebration of the power of theatre. It is especially fitting that this production will reopen the unique Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon, evoking as it does a different time in the town, one that not only gave birth to our house playwright but one which knew what it was to live through waves of pandemic, of grief and recovery. I am delighted to be collaborating once more with Tom Piper, Prema Mehta and Oğuz Kaplangi, all of whom relish the theatrical possibilities of the Swan and the emotional power of this story.
“The Swan will have been closed for three years, and we have missed it very much. I am enormously proud of our recent history of premiering bold and ambitious new work in that space, from ‘Oppenheimer’ to ‘Hecuba’ to ‘Seven Acts of Mercy’ to ‘Miss Littlewood’. When we closed in 2020 we were midway through a season which included ‘A Museum in Baghdad’ and ‘The Whip’ and the latter has recently been included in the GCSE syllabus. It remains an essential part of the RSC’s programme to commission and produce vivid new plays with an epic imagination and Hamnet marks the beginning of a wonderful year back on that intimate stage.”
Hamnet has sold over a 1.5 million copies worldwide and was named both Waterstones Book of the Year and winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2020. The novel also saw Maggie O’Farrell named the winner of the 2020 Women’s Prize for Fiction; the UK's most prestigious annual book award celebrating and honouring fiction written by women. As the No. 1 Sunday Times Bestseller in 2021, Hamnet was shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction (2021) and British Book awards ‘Fiction Book of the Year’ (2021).
The production is adapted for the stage by award-winning playwright Lolita Chakrabarti, whose writing credits include Red Velvet, Invisible Cities, Hymn, The Goddess and the award-winning stage adaptation of Yann Martel’s Booker Prize winning novel Life of Pi (winner of five Olivier awards including Best New Play, 2022) which transfers to Broadway’s Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre from the American Repertory Theatre in Boston in March 2023. She was also dramaturg on Message in a Bottle, curated The Greatest Wealth, for which she wrote a monologue and is dramaturg on the forthcoming Sylvia at The Old Vic.
Lolita Chakrabarti said;
“I am so thrilled to have been given the opportunity to adapt Maggie O’Farrell’s much-loved novel for the stage. It has been a gift to absorb this story and to imagine Anne Hathaway (Agnes in the book) and her husband William Shakespeare. It has been a fascinating task to look at our greatest writer in the English language as a man, not a genius, and to discover the family behind him and the influences on his work. As part of my research, I have greatly enjoyed experiencing Stratford and visited many of the buildings and streets Shakespeare and Agnes would have inhabited.
“While the facts about the Shakespeare family are limited, this is a universal story about a family’s dynamics, the devastating effects of a child's death, the necessary reinvention after loss and how new writing is formed. It has been a privilege to recreate and imagine the life of an often forgotten but important figure, Mrs Shakespeare. And to be re-opening the Swan Theatre with this play is very exciting indeed, bringing back a much loved and beautiful performance space here in the heart of Stratford-upon-Avon where Agnes and William can live again.”
Hamnet is directed by Erica Whyman, who is Acting Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company. The production marks Erica’s twelfth production for the Company, having first joined the RSC in January 2013 as Deputy Artistic Director. The production will feature Design by Tom Piper, Lighting by Prema Mehta and Music byOğuz Kaplangi. The Casting Director is Amy Ball CDG with further creative team to be confirmed.
Warwickshire, 1582. Agnes Hathaway, a natural healer, meets the Latin tutor, William Shakespeare. Drawn together by powerful but hidden impulses, they create a life together and make a family.
As William moves to London to discover his place in the world of theatre, Agnes stays at home to raise their three children, but she is the constant presence and purpose of his life.
When the plague steals 11-year-old Hamnet from his loving parents, they must each confront their loss alone. And yet, out of the greatest suffering, something of extraordinary wonder is born.
Maggie O’Farrell said;
“I couldn’t be happier that the RSC will be premiering their stage adaption of Hamnet at the Swan Theatre. The motivation, for me, in writing the novel was to give a voice and a presence to the only son of William Shakespeare, who died when he was eleven and has ever since been relegated to a literary footnote in his father’s biography. I wanted to write a book that put this forgotten child centre-stage, to say to the world that he was important, he was grieved, his life was significant, and that without his early death, we wouldn’t have Hamlet and we wouldn’t have Twelfth Night. It has been a joy from start to finish to work with the RSC, Erica Whyman and Lolita Chakrabarti on bringing this adaptation into being. That Hamnet the boy will now be appearing in a play with his name, in the very town where he lived and died, is an incredibly moving thought. I’m so grateful to everyone involved in this exciting venture.”
Hamnet marks the official re-opening of the Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon following a major refurbishment which began in January 2022.
Significant modifications to the theatre include new infrastructure for lighting, sound and video, repairs to the woodwork and brickwork, the introduction of new, wider seats with armrests in all positions replacing the previous bench seating, improved access including an increase in the number of designated wheelchair spaces and an enhanced hearing loop.
Visitors to the Swan Theatre can play their part in securing the future of the space by naming a seat or a pillar in the auditorium, with donation options ranging from £300 - £3000. For further information and to donate, visit: www.rsc.org.uk/swanseats
Further details of The Swan 2023 re-opening programme will be released early next year.
ENDS
For further information contact: Kate Evans (Media and Communications Manager) at Kate.evans@rsc.org.uk (07920 244434)
Listings Information:
On sale:
Wednesday 16 November Major Supporters, Artists Circle and Gold Patrons
Thursday 17 November Silver Patrons
Friday 18 November Bronze Patrons
Monday 21 November Members
Friday 25 November Subscribers
Tuesday 29 November Public Booking
Hamnet
Based on the novel by Maggie O'Farrell
Adapted for the stage by Lolita Chakrabarti
Directed by Erica Whyman
Swan Theatre
Saturday 1 April – Saturday 17 June 2023
Press Night: Wednesday 12 April 2023
Assisted Performances
Audio Described: Saturday 29 April, 1.30pm / Friday 16 June
Captioned: Wednesday 3 May. 1.30pm, Friday 9 June
Chilled: Wednesday 3 May, 1.30pm, Saturday 3 June, 1.30pm
BSL: Friday 12 May, Saturday 20 May, 1.30pm
Creative Team Talk: Tuesday 11 April
Post Show Stay Late: Friday 12 May (BSL Interpreted)
Unwrapped: Saturday 17 June
Lolita Chakrabarti
Lolita Chakrabarti OBE is an actress and an award-winning playwright. Her debut play Red Velvet opened at the Tricycle Theatre, London, before transferring to St Ann’s Warehouse in New York and then to London’s West End as part of Sir Kenneth Branagh’s inaugural season at The Garrick Theatre. It earned her the Evening Standard Charles Wintour Award for Most Promising Playwright 2012; The Critics’ Circle Award for Most Promising Playwright 2013; AWA for Arts and Culture 2013 and an Olivier Award nomination for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre 2012, as well as many other nominations. Red Velvet is now on the Drama syllabus for A level, is studied at universities in the UK and USA and there have been over twenty professional productions in the USA and beyond, including at the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington.
In 2019 Lolita adapted the Booker Prize winning novel Life of Pi for the stage, (Sheffield Theatres, Wyndham’s Theatre in London’s West End and Boston Dec 2022), which will open on Broadway in 2023 and for which she won the award for Best New Play at the Olivier Awards 2022, UK Theatre Awards 2019 and WhatsonStage Awards 2019. Other writing credits include Hymn (Almeida Theatre/Sky Arts); an adaptation of Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities (Manchester International Festival and Brisbane Festival); Stones of Venice, a VR film for New Vision Arts Festival in Hong Kong; she curated The Greatest Wealth (The Old Vic) celebrating 8 decades of the NHS, which was also shown online during the pandemic; she was dramaturg on Message in a Bottle (ZooNation/Sadler’s Wells). Lolita is dramaturg on the forthcoming Sylvia for the Old Vic.
Acting credits include: Fanny and Alexander (The Old Vic); Hamlet (Royal Academy of Dramatic Art), Vigil, Showtrial, The Casual Vacancy (BBC); Wheel of Time (Amazon Prime); Born to Kill (Channel 4); My Mad Fat Diary (E4), Beowulf; Return to the Shieldlands (ITV); Riviera (Sky); Criminal (Netflix).
Maggie O’Farrell
Maggie O’Farrell is the author of Hamnet, winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2020, and the memoir I Am, I Am, I Am, both Sunday Times No. 1 bestsellers. Her novels include After You’d Gone, My Lover’s Lover, The Distance Between Us, which won a Somerset Maugham Award, The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox, The Hand that First Held Mine, which won the 2010 Costa Novel Award, Instructions for a Heatwave and This Must Be the Place. Her latest novel, The Marriage Portrait, was published in August 2022. She is also the author of two books for children, Where Snow Angels Go, and The Boy Who Lost His Spark (October 2022).
Erica Whyman
Erica joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in January 2013 as Deputy Artistic Director. She is currently Acting Artistic Director.
As part of the season celebrating the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death she directed A Midsummer Night’s Dream: A Play for the Nation in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, a production involving 18 professional actors, 14 amateur theatre groups (84 amateur actors) and 580 school children from across the country, which toured the UK from March to June 2016. Her 2018 production of Romeo and Juliet in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, the Barbican and on a national tour incorporated 60 young people from RSC partner schools into its prologue.
In September 2021 Erica directed Faith, a major co-production between the RSC and the Coventry City of Culture Trust. The experience was made on the streets of Coventry in collaboration with the many faith communities of the city, taking place over 24 hours in the city and online to explore how people of faith, and of non-religious world views, understand and celebrate the chapters and mysteries of our lives.
In 2020 Erica directed The Winter’s Tale which was due to be staged in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre and on UK tour from March 2020 but was postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The production was finally reimagined for the screen and was broadcast on BBC Four in April 2021 and then on iPlayer where it has been seen by 80,000 people.
Erica was Chief Executive of Northern Stage in Newcastle Upon Tyne from 2005 to 2012.
She was Artistic Director of Southwark Playhouse (1998-2000) and Artistic Director of the Gate Theatre, Notting Hill (2000-2004). At the Gate she ensured that the theatre paid its actors for the first time in 25 years, and she inaugurated the UK's first award for translation. Erica is a theatre director with many years' experience all over the UK.
For the RSC: The Ant and the Cicada; Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again. (The Other Place); The Christmas Truce (Royal Shakespeare Theatre); Hecuba (Swan Theatre); A Midsummer Night’s Dream: A Play for the Nation (Royal Shakespeare Theatre and UK Tour); The Seven Acts of Mercy (Swan Theatre); The Earthworks (The Other Place); Romeo and Juliet (Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Barbican and UK Tour), Miss Littlewood (Swan Theatre), A Museum in Baghdad (Swan Theatre).
About the Swan Theatre
The Shakespeare Memorial Theatre was the brainchild of a local brewer, Charles Edward
Flower. He donated a two-acre site by the River Avon and in 1875 launched an international campaign to build a theatre in the town of Shakespeare’s birth.
The theatre, a Victorian-Gothic building seating just over 700 people, opened in 1879 with a performance of Much Ado About Nothing. Plays were performed during the weeks of the festival designed to celebrate Shakespeare, which took place each spring. For the rest of the year, the building provided a venue for local events, in addition to a museum and library to study Shakespeare. The Memorial Theatre was awarded a Royal Charter in 1925 to recognise almost 50 years of excellence.
In 1926, the theatre burned down, with only the library and art gallery being saved. The festival went ahead, with Archibald Flower, the nephew of Charles Flower, organising the use of the Stratford Picture House, owned by the family, as a temporary theatre. After a period in ruins, the burnt-out shell of the old theatre was then converted into a conference
centre with a flat roof. It was only in 1986, following a donation by Frederick Koch, that the Swan Theatre, designed by architect Michael Reardon, opened within the original red-brick gothic façade, with a performance of Two Noble Kinsmen.
Since opening in 1986, the Swan Theatre has played host to a programme encompassing the work of Shakespeare's contemporaries in the Swan Theatre, as well as plays by later writers, such as Restoration playwrights, and new work by today's writers.
The Swan Theatre closed in 2007 as part of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre Transformation project, reopening on 24 February 2011, with the current refurbishment beginning in 2022 after a period of closure during the Covid-19 pandemic.
NOTES TO EDITORS
The RSC is supported using public funding by Arts Council England
The work of the RSC is supported by the Culture Recovery Fund
The RSC is generously supported by RSC America
Hamnet is supported by RSC Production Circle members Peggy Czyzak-Dannenbaum and Marcia Whitaker.
New Work at the RSC is generously supported by The Drue and H.J. Heinz II Charitable Trust.
TikTok £10 Tickets sponsored by TikTok
Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC)
The Royal Shakespeare Company is a theatre and learning charity that creates world class theatre, made in Stratford-upon-Avon and shared around the world, performing plays by Shakespeare and his contemporaries, as well as commissioning an exceptionally wide range of original work from contemporary writers. Our purpose is to ensure that Shakespeare is for everyone, and we do that by unlocking the power of his plays and of live performance and our learning and education work throughout the UK and across the world.
We believe everybody’s life is enriched by culture and creativity. We have trained generations of the very best theatre makers and we continue to nurture the talent of the future. Our transformative Learning programmes reach over half a million young people and adults each year, and through our Creative Placemaking and Public Programme we create projects with and for communities who have not historically engaged with our work. We are a leader in creative immersive technologies and digital development.
We have a proud record of innovation, diversity and excellence on stage and are determined to grasp the opportunity to become an even more inclusive, progressive, relevant and ambitious organisation.
We have one of the UK’s largest arts learning programmes, working with over 1,000 schools each year to broaden access to high quality arts learning and transform experiences of Shakespeare in schools. Through our national partnership programme with schools and regional theatres we target areas of structural disadvantage, including 26 areas of multiple deprivation across the country, from Cornwall to Middlesbrough. Research shows that our approaches to teaching Shakespeare support the development of reading and writing skills, accelerate language acquisition and development, raise aspirations and improve student attitudes to school and learning in general. They also foster well-being, self-esteem, empathy, resilience and tolerance and promote critical-thinking, creative, analytical, communication and problem-solving skills.
We are committed to being a teaching and learning theatre and we are the only arts organisation to have been awarded Independent Research Organisation status. We create world class theatre for, with and by audiences and theatre makers of all ages. We provide training for emerging and established theatre makers and arts professionals, for teachers and for young people. We share learning formally and informally. We embed training and research across our company, work and processes.
We recognise the climate emergency and work hard to embed environmental sustainability into our operations, creative work and business practice, making a commitment to continually reduce our carbon footprint.
Neal Street Productions is one of the UK’s most respected production companies, producing film, television and theatre. Founded 2003 by Sam Mendes, Pippa Harris and Caro Newling, it makes distinctive, popular award-winning projects on both sides of the Atlantic. TV series: Call the Midwife, Britannia, The Hollow Crown. Films include Mendes’ 1917 and releasing December, Empire of Light. Recent theatre The Lehman Trilogy, Walking with Ghosts, The Ferryman, the new stage adaptation of Local Hero, and forthcoming The Motive and the Cue. In 2015 Neal Street moved under the umbrella of parent company, All3Media.
Keep Your RSC supports our mission to create theatre at its best, unlocking Shakespeare and transforming lives. Thousands of generous audience members, trusts and foundations and partners supported Keep Your RSC since 2020, alongside a £19.4 million loan from the Culture Recovery Fund, we are thrilled to be welcoming audiences back. It will take time to recover, to reopen all our theatres, and many years to repay the loan and the support and generosity of our audiences is more important than ever. Please donate at rsc.org.uk/donate
Arts Council England is the national development body for arts and culture across England, working to enrich people’s lives. We support a range of activities across the arts, museums and libraries – from theatre to visual art, reading to dance, music to literature, and crafts to collections. Great art and culture inspires us, brings us together and teaches us about ourselves and the world around us. In short, it makes life better. Between 2018 and 2022, we will invest £1.45 billion of public money from government and an estimated £860 million from the National Lottery to help create these experiences for as many people as possible across the country.www.artscouncil.org.uk
