The Royal Shakespeare Company is taking the innovative step of casting the people of England as the people of England in its new production of Henry VI Part 2 that will be performed at the company’s theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon this spring.
Dozens of people with no theatrical background from six areas of the country will take part in the production, alongside a cast of professional actors.
All are involved in Shakespeare Nation, a community participation programme run by the RSC and partner theatres, aimed at reaching people who have little or no experience of theatre-going or Shakespeare’s plays.
They have started rehearsing in theatres in Blackpool, Bradford, Canterbury, Cornwall, Norwich and Nottingham, and will join the RSC in Stratford when the production opens in April.
The 74 adults will be joined by 21 youngsters aged 13-17 drawn from a network of schools that have an association with the RSC. They are youngsters with a talent for acting but from backgrounds that might restrict their chances of getting into the profession, the RSC said.
The youngsters come from Barrow-in-Furness, Birmingham, Blackpool, Bradford, Canterbury, County Durham, Hull, Launceston, London, Middlesbrough, Northampton, Nottingham, Stoke-on-Trent and York.
Shakespeare’s Henry VI trilogy tells the gripping and blood-drenched story of the brutal struggle for the English crown in the 15th century. The RSC has renamed part 2 as Henry VI: Rebellion. Its run will be followed by part 3, renamed Henry VI: Wars of the Roses.
In the two productions, nine main parts will be reserved for actors that graduated from drama school last year, who have found launching their careers especially difficult when theatres and productions have been forced to close as a result of the Covid pandemic.
Owen Horsley, who directs Rebellion and Wars of the Roses, said there were 85 characters on the cast list of Henry VI Part 2.
“One of the reasons for this wide array of characters is a series of scenes that Shakespeare writes concerning the people of England, who in various ways interact with the royal family.”
Horsley and Gregory Doran, co-director of Rebellion, had the idea of using the RSC’s outreach programme to cast ordinary people to play the people of England. Some scenes will see more than 50 people on the RSC stage.
“This is an extremely exciting project as it allows this history play, written over 400 years ago, to respond directly to the state of the nation,” said Horsley.
Kelly Harris, 23, from Bradford said she was “anxious and excited” about the prospect of taking to the RSC stage in a full-scale performance of Shakespeare.
“At school I got really sick of Romeo and Juliet. But then I did Much Ado About Nothing for GCSE, and fell in love with it. I watched different Shakespeare productions on live streams, YouTube and the BBC – and then my mum sent me a link to the Shakespeare Nation project. I applied for it during lockdown for something to do.”
Harris said she rarely went to the theatre. “Not many Shakespeare productions come to Bradford.”
She has yet to find out what her part in Rebellion will be. “The play has a really good backstory, and there’s lots of gore and fighting. It’s right up my street.”
In Rebellion, the nonprofessionals will play the roles of working people who take part in the uprising led by the character of Jack Cade against Henry VI, and townsfolk in a scene where Henry VI is out hunting. Some will have speaking parts.
