Cunard to feature Royal Shakespeare Company aboard Queen Mary 2
The Royal Shakespeare Company has partnered with Cunard Line to create new shows and theatrical performances that will be featured aboard the line’s flagship Queen Mary 2. Queen Mary 2 will offer actors workshops, tableside performances and tailored musical performances via the The Royal Shakespeare Company for three years during her trans-Atlantic seasons.
The three-year partnership will begin on May 29th and run until August 12th, 2022, and then again from September 15th until November 13th, 2022. It will be repeated during these periods in 2023 and 2024. The Royal Shakespeare Company will offer “tailored theatrical performances” and “captivating theatre” by Shakespeare, his contemporaries and other famous people in literature, past and present, according to Cunard Line.
These tailored performances include Boundless as the Sea created by Owen Horsley, which is a compilation of all Shakespeare’s most iconic loves scenes, and new productions such as Miss Littlewood, a musical by Sam Kenyon that is making its transatlantic debut.
“Boundless as the Sea, which is what Juliet calls her love for Romeo, will be a heart-warming taster of all the ways Shakespeare explores love and romance, and we are also very pleased to be presenting a version of the joyous, quirky and toe-tapping Miss Littlewood,” said Erica Whyman, Acting Artistic Director, Royal Shakespeare Company.
“This is an exciting new venture for us, and we look forward very much to meeting new audiences onboard,” she added.
actors will perform their personal favorite sonnets and speeches, and answer questions from the audience, in addition to a series of workshops led by the onboard cast.
“We are delighted to welcome The Royal Shakespeare Company onboard our flagship, the Queen Mary 2,” said Lee Powell, Vice President of Brand & Product, Cunard Line. “To be able to offer our guests access to unique performances by world leaders in both contemporary theater and Shakespeare’s finest work, is an extraordinary opportunity which I know our guests will fully immerse themselves in.”
In addition to these performances, Queen Mary 2 will host a touring exhibition, Digital Diorama: An Augmented Journey Through Shakespeare’s Stratford in which guests will use devices to experience scenes from his plays that will come to life before their eyes.
Some of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s most popular productions in recent years including Hamlet, Henry V, The Merry Wives of Windsor and As You Like It will also be screened in Cunard’s onboard cinema, Illuminations.
