New York-On-Avon

British theatrical troupe the Royal Shakespeare Company is planning to build a replica of its Stratford-On-Avon theatre in New York and will run a series of five plays there next summer. “The RSC will perform in a 930-seat thrust-stage auditorium that will be installed at New York’s Park Avenue Armoury. It will be a replica of the Courtyard Theatre, where the company performs, which is itself a prototype for the transformed Royal Shakespeare Theatre, due to reopen in late 2010. The New York structure will take two weeks to build. Its fate after the productions is undecided. ‘Our thrust stage, wrapping the audience around the action, allows people to reach out to our actors and to each other in a space which is both intimate and powerful,’ said the RSC’s artistic director, Michael Boyd. ‘I am delighted that we can recreate that intimacy right here in New York City in the extraordinary space of Park Avenue Armoury.’ Five plays will be selected from the company’s UK repertoire from 2009 and 2010: Antony and Cleopatra, As You Like It, Julius Caesar, King Lear, Romeo and Juliet and The Winter’s Tale.”