Friday, December 05, 2025
RSC to cut workforce by 11% as it faces ‘perilous situation’
Royal Shakespeare Company | The Guardian: The Royal Shakespeare Company has defended plans to reduce its workforce by 11% and merge its costume departments by saying the proposal will ensure it is “match fit” as it faces a “perilous situation”.
Daniel Evans, the RSC’s joint artistic director, told the Guardian the reduction in staff numbers could save £2.8m a year, as the organisation attempts to address a shortfall thought to be between £5m and £6m.
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4 comments:
Again, this problem could easily be solved with more public funding for the arts. Providing millions of people with more jobs. Yet it seems our government is continually more interested in cutting it. Making people lose their jobs. Actually damaging the market more and more. I've never understood the hatred. If there are more theaters. There's more people going to them. More people spending money, which is good for an economy. It seems the only reason people want to defund them. Is because they don't support their agenda. Which is such a disappointing thing to see. You see many public funding central countries like China. be able to create such amazing things. Because they understand the potential of funding the arts. They understand that the arts are critical forms of entertainment and they are something that people can easily spend their money on. Again totally stupid to see people defunding them It serves zero purpose.
I believe that if the arts got more public funds, it would not only be more accessible, but we wouldn’t have to cut staff back, and expand this industry like it needs to be. Theatre is so crucial to human emotion, and if we are having to cut 11% of staff at a major opera house, the main opera house in London, that’s an issue. If they are going to “consolidate costume shops” they need to consolidate their staff and just transfer all of them to the new department which combines, rather than just firing 11% of them. While I understand they need to make money, and it’s rather tight right now, there isn’t a sole solution to do this, it should be evaluated further after the consolidation prior to firing 11% of their staff. I don’t believe this was the solution, and I think they need to think about firing their staff more in the future, while there isn’t a simple undo for this, it certainly wasn’t the right decision and costed a lot of people their job, and making a lot of theatre makers find new jobs, which simply floods the job market and makes it incredibly difficult.
While I understand that there is immense financial pressure on this organization and that among the choices to make, reducing redundancy in one department as opposed to cutting a department entirely is a better choice, I still wonder about the decision to remain firm on a commitment to a 25 pound ticket price for 25,000 tickets while also making staffing cuts. Maybe the consideration is more of a ‘where is the biggest cut we can possibly’ make, leading to a more extreme decision to protect the future of the company, but I wonder how much consideration was put into raising ticketing costs to offset this work. Especially when you have to cut staffing by 11%, it seems appropriate to also place some of that burden on the theatre goer as if they do truly wish to support an organization that is coming closer to financial troubles, especially in a time where live entertainment in general is struggling.
The issue in this article is clear. The main perpetrator contributing to the need for this merger isn’t the Royal Shakespeare Company, but rather the lack of public funding for the arts. The situation of the Royal Shakespeare Company having to merge costume departments which cuts their workforce by eleven percent, sadly isn’t a rare occurrence right now. Take the Pittsburgh theatre scene for example, with two of the most prominent regional theatres in the area coming to a merger agreement solely out of a need for survival of each financially. Everything stacks up when it comes to money, proven by the increased cost of timber and need for accessible tickets, as this article explains. It’s sad to see measures such as these being taken, and it’s hard not to feel helpless as individuals when even big names such as the Royal Shakespeare Company are struggling. What matters is that pressure continues to build and people continue to advocate for public funding of the arts.
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