Amateur hour: culture, capital, and the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Open Stages initiative

Abstract

In 2011, the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) began a series of collaborations with established amateur theatre groups from across the UK. The initiative now known as Open Stages became one of the most ambitious educational outreach programmes ever run by the RSC, engaging hundreds of amateur theatre practitioners in a process of skills sharing and knowledge exchange. This article analyses the significance of the RSC’s Open Stages initiative and illustrates how the programme’s practical components were underpinned by an important reallocation of cultural capital from the RSC to their amateur partners. Reciprocally, this article explores what the RSC stood to gain from collaborating with amateur theatre-makers and thereby seeks to challenge the traditional hierarchy of professional vs. amateur theatre in twenty-first-century British culture.

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