RSC to remain closed for the rest of 2020, and consulting on redundancies

A joint statement from artistic director Gregory Doran and executive director Catherine Mallyon said 'It is with great sadness that we have now reached the stage where a formal consultation process with employees must take place to safeguard the long-term future of the company. We had hoped that things would have become more positive by now, but this has not been the case.'

While the scale of redundancies has not been confirmed, and there are 750 permanent staff at the company, it has been made clear that casual workers and those on variable-hours contracts would not be able to be paid from November, since social distancing measures will not allow the theatres to reopen for full-scale productions at that time, as had previously been hoped.

'Variable-hours colleagues will remain employed and casual workers will stay on our books, for when work opportunities return in the future,' Doran and Mallyon went on. This affects 149 variable or casual staff members.

It confirmed it has 149 people on variable hours or casual contracts.

'Despite our wish to reopen our theatres by the end of the year, it is now clear that the ongoing pandemic and the continued need for social distancing mean we will not be able to stage full RSC productions in our theatres before 2021,' Doran and Mallyon said, however, 'Despite our theatres being temporarily closed, our acting company continues to work on events and activities, including our programme of outdoor Shakespeare in Stratford. We will look at what other events and online activity we can continue to provide for our audiences in the autumn and winter.

'We very much hope that the government review of social distancing measures in November will bring positive news for the industry, and provide a timeline for when we can welcome our audiences back into our theatres again.' 

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