Royal Shakespeare Company, 2011 Season

The Royal Shakespeare Company celebrates its 50th birthday season with the grand reopening of its transformed Royal Shakespeare Theatre at a cost of £112.8 million. The temporary Courtyard Theatre folds curtains on the sold-out smash hit that is Matilda, awaiting one last flourish in the Olympics Shakespeare Festival next year before its intended demolition. New productions of Macbeth, King Lear and Romeo and Juliet inaugurate the revamped RST, while London operations transfer from the Roundhouse to Hampstead Theatre for the premieres of three new plays. The season is capped with a six-week summer residency in New York. Full season listings below.

London

Julius Caesar, 6 Jan-5 Feb

Greg Hicks as Caesar, whose assassination unleashes a tide of violence and political powerplay. Lucy Bailey directs, with Sam Troughton as Brutus and John Mackay as Cassius. Read Alexandra Coghlan's review.

As You Like It, 13 Jan-5 Feb

Forced to flee for their lives into the Forest of Arden, Rosalind and Orlando find themselves entangled in a beguiling game of love, lust and mistaken identity. One of Shakespeare's great subversively erotic comedies is directed by Michael Boyd, with Katy Stephens as Rosalind and Jonjo O'Neill as Orlando. As You Like It plays in repertoire 6 July-14 Aug.

King Lear, 21 Jan-4 Feb

Greg Hicks (pictured left by Manuel Harlan) as the irascible King who foolishly divides his inheritance among his three daughters before he is ready to give up power. Kathryn Hunter, who played the Fool in 2010 performances, is replaced by Sophie Russell, and David Farr directs. The production transfers 23 Feb to Stratford's Royal Shakespeare Theatre.

RSC at the Hampstead Theatre

Little Eagles, Rona Munro, 16 Apr-7 May

Rona Munro’s new play tells the story of the private torments and sacrifices of conscience made by the Soviets’ great space designer Sergei Korolyov who survived brutal imprisonment in Stalin’s gulags to become Khrushchev’s chief designer and unsung hero of the USSR’s domination of the space race and aeronautical research programme. A new RSC Commission directed by Roxana Silbert, RSC Associate Director (press night Thursday, 21 April).

Silence, David Farr and Filter, 12-28 May

A new collaboration between Filter, a theatre company celebrated for boldness, wit and a pioneering use of sound, and RSC Associate Director David Farr (press night Wednesday, 18 May).

American Trade, Tarell Alvin McCraney, 2-18 June

A new play by award-winning young Tarell Alvin McCraney about a New York hustler who moves to London to set up an escort agency with a multiracial roll of workers. Adult themes. A new RSC Commission directed by Jamie Lloyd (press night Wednesday, 8 June).

Stratford-upon-Avon

Courtyard Theatre

Matilda, the Musical, ends 30 Jan, 2011

Smash-hit musical on Roald Dahl's children's book is sold out until the end of the run, but a return is likely before long. This is the last staging in the Courtyard Theatre, as the rebuilt Royal Shakespeare Theatre comes fully on stream this year. (Adrianna Bertola as Matilda pictured right by Manuel Harlan). Read Matt Wolf's review

Swan Theatre

Hamlet (RSC Young People's Shakespeare production), 24 Feb-25 March

His father's death was suspicious and his mother has married the man he suspects of murder. Does Hamlet have the right to avenge these wrongs? A new version for youngsters co-edited by Tarell Alvin McCraney and Bijan Sheibani, directed by McCraney.

Antony and Cleopatra, 3-23 March

Caught between desire and duty, Shakespeare’s mature regal lovers are played by Darrell D’Silva and, replacing Kathryn Hunter, who has withdrawn from the company,  the recent Rosalind in As You Like It, Katy Stephens. They are directed by RSC Artistic Director Michael Boyd on a bare stage. Transfers to New York’s Lincoln Centre in RSC repertoire 28 July-13 Aug and Newcastle. Read David Nice's review

The Tempest (RSC Young People's Shakespeare production), 11-26 Mar

New puppet version created by Little Angel Theatre, directed by their Artistic Director, Peter Glanville (previews until 14 March).

The Rape of Lucrece, 30 Mar-2 Apr

An RSC Studio production with Camille O’Sullivan in an unusual version with music of Shakespeare’s violent narrative poem.

Cardenio, 14 Apr-6 Oct

A lost play by Shakespeare and John Fletcher based on Cardenio, a character in Cervantes’s Don Quixote, that was last known to have been performed in 1612, and The Double Falsehood by 18th-century playwright Lewis Theobald is believed to have been based upon it. The lost Cardenio has been reconstructed, through painstaking literary archaeology, by RSC Chief Associate Director Gregory Doran.

The City Madam, Philip Massinger, 5 May-4 Oct

A rich brother takes his poorer brother in to live with his spoilt family, and intricate comic plots ensue. Dominic Hill, Artistic Director of the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh, directs Massinger's biting comedy.

Dunsinane, David Greig, 15 June-2 July

Macbeth is dead. An English army has killed the tyrant and taken the seat of power. David Greig imagines the events in a country torn apart by civil war. RSC Associate Director Roxana Silbert revives her acclaimed 2010 RSC production which premiered at Hampstead Theatre with the National Theatre of Scotland.

The Homecoming, Harold Pinter, 28 July-15 Oct

Pinter's masterpiece about the domestic war that erupts when a well-educated man returns to visit his working-class family was premiered by the RSC in 1965 under Peter Hall.

Royal Shakespeare Theatre

King Lear, 23 Feb-2 Apr

Greg Hicks as the irascible King who foolishly divides his inheritance among his three daughters before he is ready to give up power. Sophie Russell plays his Fool, replacing Kathryn Hunter, who withdrew in January, and David Farr directs (previewing until 10 March). King Lear plays in New York 15 July-12 Aug.

Romeo and Juliet, 3 Mar-2 Apr

An impulsive marriage by two teenagers is imperilled by a vicious feud between their families. Rupert Goold, associate director, directs Sam Troughton and Mariah Gale in the title roles. It plays in New York 10 July-13 Aug. Read Matt Wolf's review

The Comedy of Errors (RSC Young People's Shakespeare production), 26 Mar & 2 Apr

When two sets of twins are shipwrecked their father can save only one of each set. Years later, one Antipholus and one Dromio arrive in Ephesus only to find that everyone there seems a little odd. This distilled version of Shakespeare's romp has been specially created for schools and family audiences (pictured right in action) with acclaimed theatre company Told by an Idiot. Edited by Gary Owen, directed by Paul Hunter.

Macbeth, 16 April-6 Oct

The tragedy of a warlord whose lust for reward drives him to murder and his own downfall. Directed by Michael Boyd.

The Merchant of Venice, 13 May-4 Oct

In a city built on business, merchants and traders gamble on deals that can make a fortune or lose them everything. When Antonio bets on a venture that fails to repay, he is forced to borrow money from a man he despises. RSC Associate Rupert Goold directs.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 29 July-5 Nov

On an enchanted summer's evening four bewildered young lovers unwittingly tangle with a powerful fairy king and queen. Nancy Meckler directs Shakespeare's beguiling comedy.

Marat/Sade, Peter Weiss, 14 Oct-5 Nov

Weiss’s 1963 play was made internationally famous by a 1964 Peter Brook production. In post-Revolution France, the inmates of an asylum present a play about the murder of the brutal Jean-Paul Marat under the direction of the Marquis de Sade. Anthony Neilson directs a new production.

New York

Antony and Cleopatra, King Lear, Romeo and Juliet, As You Like It, A Winter's Tale, 6 July-14 Aug

Lincoln Centre, New York, USA (presented by Lincoln Center Festival and Park Avenue Armory, in association with The Ohio State University) – five Shakespeare productions for a six-week repertoire tour at the Armory.

• Royal Shakespeare Company website.  Box office telephone 0844 800 1110
• Royal Shakespeare Company coverage on theartsdesk