To Be! RSC gets some help with exporting the Brard to the Big Apple

A logistic company from sutton stepped back to Elizabethan times last month as it helped ship a full-stage, seating, costumes and props to New York for a prestigious theatre company.
Embassy Freight Services (Midlands) based in Boldmere has been helping the Royal Shakespeare Company transport a near full-sized mock up its new Courtyard Theatre, with an authentic thrust stage and everything required to put on a summer season in the Big Apple.
The flat-packed theatre was taken in 46 40ft containers via Liverpool docks to New York City's Amory, in Park Lane, where it will remain for a 13-week stay and showcase William Shakespeare's Julius Ceasar, The Winter's Tale, King Lear, Romeo and Juliet and As You Like It.
Paul Wright, operations director as Embassy Freight Services said: "This is the first time we 've shipped such a large auditorium. We 're shipping the whole stage, from the structure tot the lighting, the seating and the props.
In the 14 months of planning with the RSC, we have developed a thorough logistic plan, with details on the transit across the Atlantic, through to the storage and delivery for re-construction at the Amory. This is all being completed within a two-week window. We tracked the consigment right down to the nuts and bolts."
The 975-seat steel framed auditorium, on three levels, was built by RSC technicians in Stratford-upon-Avon and has a thrust stage, known as the Scarlet and Gray stage, eabling the audience to be on three sides.
The containers took 8 days to travel by sea and the stage is currently being reconstructed stateside for the opening performance of As You Like It on July 6, 2011.

Back to archive