Boyd and Sacks Discuss Actors and Memory

RSC Artistic Director Michael Boyd and neurologist & author Dr. Oliver Sacks recently had a conversation at Columbia University about memory and actors. Check out some excerpts here.

Alas, poor Yorick, I knew Andre well.

Apparently the dead are more distracting than the living in the latest incarnation of Hamlet at the Royal Shakespeare Company. The skull of concert pianist and Holocaust survivor Andre Tchaikowsky has been appearing in the current Stratford production, starring David Tennant, and is causing a bit of a sensation. It was Tchaikowsky's dying wish to have his skull used in Hamlet and he bequeathed it to the RSC, but now the company says a fake skull will be used when it transfers to London. Audiences were unaware the skull belonged to the Oxford pianist, but the secret was revealed by Tennant. The RSC told Channel 4 that now the secret was out, it would be "too distracting for the audience" if the skull was used. Tchaikowsky died of cancer at the age of 46 and donated his organs to medical research, with the exception of his skull.

U.K. Evening Standard Award Winners

Winners at the 54th Evening Standard theatre awards:

Best actress

Margaret Tyzack and Penelope Wilton - The Chalk Garden (Donmar Warehouse)

Best actor

Chiwetel Ejiofor - Othello (Donmar Warehouse)

Best play

The Pitmen Painters by Lee Hall (inspired by a book by William Feaver; Live Theatre and National Theatre co-production)

The Ned Sherrin award for best musical

Street Scene (The Opera Group, Young Vic and Watford Palace Theatre co-production)

The Sydney Edwards award for best director

Michael Grandage - Othello / The Chalk Garden / Ivanov (Donmar Warehouse and Donmar West End at Wyndham's)

Best design

Neil Murray - Brief Encounter (Kneehigh at Cinema Haymarket Theatre)

The Charles Wintour award for most promising playwright

Tarell Alvin McCraney - In the Red and Brown Water / The Brothers Size (Young Vic)

The Milton Shulman award for outstanding newcomer

Ella Smith - Fat Pig (Trafalgar Studios and Comedy Theatre)

Special award

Kevin Spacey

Editor's award

The Royal Shakespeare Company for the History Cycle at the Roundhouse

Royal Shakespeare Company Goes Russian

Next year, the Royal Shakespeare Company will launch a series of 4 specially-commissioned plays about Russia and other former Soviet Bloc nations in an attempt to attract some ruble-rich billionaire investment. RSC Artistic Director, Michael Boyd, told The Independent that he wants Russian money to flow into theatre in the way that it has helped the visual arts to prosper. The first two Russian plays, to be staged in September 2009, are The Drunks by Mikhail and Vyacheslav Durnenkov, about a soldier returning from Chechnya as a reluctant hero, and The Grain Store by Natalia Vorozhbit, in a tale of 1930s famine in Ukraine. Further ahead, there will be new stagings of Pushkin's Boris Godunov and other less frequently seen classics by Gogol and Chekhov. Other Russia will conclude with an as-yet-unannounced transfer of a major Russian-originated production of a Shakespeare play.

Mr Boyd said he was inspired to launch the theatre project, which has been 3 years in the planning and which includes a play staged under his direction. "We launch ‘Other Russia’ – an exploration of Russia and the former Soviet Union countries, drawing on the great Russian theatrical tradition with some of Eastern Europe's most inspirational new writers. I am looking forward to directing The Grain Store on the main stage at The Courtyard Theatre…It's a big moment in Russian history as it tries to engage with capitalism and the West. It is the major supplier of energy for the rest of Europe. It's an interesting time to see whether there will be a new clampdown, a new Cold War, or whether freedom will again be curtailed.”

RSC Launches Public Donation Appeal

The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) has launched an appeal to raise £1m in public donations to help rebuild its main theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon. The theatre closed for redevelopment in 2007 and the RSC has already received more than £100m towards the work. Now the company is seeking a further £10m and is hoping £1m will come from public donations. Donors will be able to sponsor a brick for £50, or have a seat in the theatre in Warwickshire named after them.

The transformation of the Grade II listed building started last year and should be completed by 2010. The new auditorium will incorporate the art deco facade of the 1932 theatre. Plans include a "thrust" stage for the main theatre, a 108ft (33m) tower at the entrance and a riverside walkway. The RSC has already raised £102m, including £50m from the Arts Council of England and £22m in private pledges.

The RSC has a long history of raising money from private sources. When fire severely damaged the original Stratford theatre in 1926, it was rebuilt following an international emergency appeal. And in the 1980s the nearby Swan Theatre was paid for entirely by an American philanthropist, Fred Koch.