Audiences across England, from Cornwall to Cumbria, will have the opportunity to experience high-quality Shakespeare productions in their local community, thanks to a £2 million funding boost for the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) from Arts Council England, using money from the National Lottery. 

The four-year touring programme has been developed by the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) as part of their ongoing collaboration with 16 Associate Regional Theatres and 280 schools across 100 towns and cities, to help tackle barriers to cultural participation and access and to develop sustainable audiences for Shakespeare, supporting the wider UK touring ecology. The RSC has worked in sustained partnership with schools and communities for over 20 years with its touring programmes - both large and small scale - aligned to these partnership areas since 2016.

The newly announced funding will underpin a major, four-year programme to pilot new models of touring to make high-quality Shakespeare productions accessible to communities, with a specific focus on areas of structural disadvantage across England. This includes a new prototype for embedded partnership work, based on a week-long residency model in which schools act as regional touring hubs, working with RSC and regional artists to deliver an integrated programme of live performances, in-school workshops, post-show Q & As and talent-development opportunities. 

This four-year commitment responds directly to research published by the Arts Council England this month, showing that the number of plays touring across England has fallen 64% since 2019.

The programme  consists of two large-scale Shakespeare tours in 2028 and 2030, programmed in collaboration with the RSC’s 8 large-scale Associate Regional Theatres: Blackpool Grand Theatre, Norwich Theatre , Newcastle Theatre Royal, Bradford Theatres, Theatre Royal and Royal Concert Hall Nottingham, Marlowe Theatre Canterbury, Hall for Cornwall and York Theatre Royal, with an anticipated audience reach of 56,0000+, alongside four annual, twelve-week First Encounters with Shakespeare tours to schools, theatres and communities with an anticipated audience and participant reach of c.50,000. 

Opening in Autumn 2026 as previously announced, Harriet Walter will reprise her role as Brutus in Phyllida Lloyd’s landmark revival of all-female, 2012 production of Julius Caesar touring to Associate Schools across England; the first of four First Encounters with Shakespeare productions to be presented in schools and local communities across England from 2026-2030. 

The production will tour to Associate Schools in Peterborough, Cornwall, Bradford, Nottingham and Blackpool as part of a new week-long residency model from Monday 21 September - Friday 23 October, after which, it will visit The Other Place, Stratford-upon-Avon from Thursday 5 - Saturday 28 November. A series of in-school workshops and post-show discussions will accompany the production. These live events, unique to each performance will see cast, creatives, young people and guest speakers from local communities and the criminal justice system discuss how this 400-year-old text connects with our lives and world today.

The RSC’s Associate Schools Programme works with 16 Associate Regional Theatres and 280 Associate Schools across England to embed the active teaching of Shakespeare in the curriculum. First piloted in 2006, the programme is open to primary, secondary and special state-funded schools and further education colleges in England, with a specific focus on schools serving areas of structural disadvantage and is built around the principle of schools and theatres working in local partnership clusters to develop long-term, sustainable pathways to success.

The 16 Associate Regional Theatre involved in First Encounters are: Bradford Theatres, Belgrade Theatre Coventry, The Core at Corby Cube, Embassy Theatre Skegness, Blackpool Grand Theatre, Hall for Cornwall, Hull Truck Theatre, Marlowe Theatre Canterbury, Mayflower Theatre & Mayflower Studios Southampton, Newcastle Theatre Royal, New Vic Theatre, Northern Stage, Norwich Theatre, Theatre Royal and Royal Concert Hall Nottingham, Silhouette Youth Theatre and York Theatre Royal.