Read about how our relationships with Dulwich College International in Asia, Horace Mann School in New York and Fairleigh Dickinson University (FDU) have helped their students connect with Shakespeare
If you are interested in discussing being an international partner of RSC Learning, please contact Victoria Cholmondeley: victoria.cholmondeley@rsc.org.uk.
Dulwich College International
RSC Learning is working in partnership with Dulwich College International delivering arts education in eight of its schools in Asia for three years from 2019 to 2022. Beginning in 2016, this is the sixth year of the partnership.
The collaboration includes a wide variety of opportunities for students aged five to 18 to deepen their knowledge and understanding of Shakespeare’s works through using tried and tested strategies from the RSC’s rehearsal rooms. DCI recently completed the eighth Annual Dulwich Shakespeare Festival, Four Seasons. This is the second year the festival has been hosted online across schools in China, Singapore and Seoul.
Since early 2020, staff and students at Dulwich College International have displayed incredible resilience in adapting to new ways of learning. To reflect this, we have supported the students to express their own differing experiences through working with four Shakespeare plays: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Richard III, Macbeth and The Winter’s Tale. Watch the Shakespeare Festival trailer.
Commenting on the partnership, Jacqui O’Hanlon, Director of RSC Learning and National Partnerships, said, “We are committed to long term partnerships and meaningful cultural exchange and are therefore delighted to be continuing our partnership with DCI schools in Asia. We all share a belief that Shakespeare’s work belongs to the world; it offers us the opportunity to explore human experience in all its many guises and like all great works of arts, helps us understand ourselves, each other and the world we live in.
"In the past three years we’ve had the joy of experiencing the truth of that with students across DCI sites, working in close collaboration with a host of committed and talented teachers. At the RSC we place a special emphasis on sharing the inheritance of Shakespeare’s work with children and young people and our education approaches are inspired by the work of RSC actors and directors in the rehearsal room. This new partnership period gives us the chance to deepen that work with students and teachers. I know it will continue to be a richly rewarding exchange, both for RSC artists working with DCI schools and for the students, teachers and audiences participating in that work.”
In addition to student activities, there is a structured programme of Professional Learning for Drama and English teachers across the Dulwich network supported by online resources. In future years, activities could include student residencies in the UK, writing and producing plays, workshops around other aspects of performance and stagecraft, and more professional learning elements for teachers.
Find out more about the RSC and Dulwich College International partnership.
Horace Mann School
RSC Learning has been working with Horace Mann School in the Bronx, New York, since 2015 and is currently running a 12-month program of work with them.
The partnership will also allow the RSC to work with a number of promising, low-income public school students from the surrounding area enrolled on the Summer on the Hill program which is based on the school's campus.
The collaboration with Horace Mann School includes a professional development program for teachers, residencies by RSC artists and a summer school program for students. During the year, students will also watch three current RSC productions streamed live into their classrooms.
Fairleigh Dickinson University (FDU)
The RSC has a five-year partnership with Fairleigh Dickinson University (FDU). FDU offers undergraduate and graduate degree programs on two New Jersey campuses and at two international campuses: Wroxton College in Oxfordshire in England, and the Vancouver Campus in British Columbia, Canada. The FDU at the RSC program will offer students studying at Wroxton College, Oxfordshire an academic semester-long experience around the works of Shakespeare.
From autumn 2022 the university will collaborate with RSC Learning to develop unique immersive learning opportunities for both aspiring actors and students interested in theatre production and/or arts management. The program aims to make Shakespeare vivid, accessible and enjoyable to students at both Wroxton College and onsite at the RSC in Stratford-upon-Avon.