THE ROYAL SHAKESPEARE COMPANY, STRATFORD-UPON-AVON

Registered charity 212481 · accounts filings on the Charity Commission register · also known as ROYAL SHAKESPEARE COMPANY - R S C, THE ROYAL SHAKESPEARE THEATRE STRATFORD-UPON-AVON

To conserve, advance and disseminate the dramatic heritage of Shakespeare and advance and improve the dramatic art in the UK and throughout the world; producing and presenting dramatic performances of all kinds and teaching, training and other educational activities. These objectives are achieved by the production of plays by Shakespeare, other classic playwrights and commissioning new work.

Causes: General Charitable Purposes · Education/training · Arts/culture/heritage/science · website · Get email alerts

Financial health, per its FY2025 accounts

The accounts state that the charity reported a net expenditure of £1.7 million for the year ended 31 March 2025, resulting in a reduction of total net assets from £130.5 million to £128.1 million. The trustees confirm that the organization has sufficient liquidity headroom to continue as a going concern, with unrestricted cash and investments totaling £31.3 million. However, the SORP-compliant free reserves were significantly lower at £3.1 million, down from £9.0 million in the prior year.

Automated summary of the FY2025 accounts; the evidenced findings below carry the verbatim passages.

What the accounts disclose

Accounts audited by BDO LLP. Discloses 4 of 6 completeness components.

Public fundraising profile: JustGiving — RSC (matched by registered charity number).

Leadership, per the charity’s website

• Shriti Vadera — Chair (source)
• Mark Thompson — Co-Deputy Chair (source)
• Andrew Miller — Co-Deputy Chair (source)
• Tamara Harvey — Co-Artistic Director (source)
• Daniel Evans — Co-Artistic Director (source)
• Andrew Leveson — Executive Director (source)

Listed on the charity’s own website when we last crawled it; roles may have changed. Pay-band disclosures above are anonymous statutory disclosures and are not attributed to any named individual.

Funders the charity credits

Named as funders/supporters on the charity’s own website (the charity’s claim, distinct from accounts-verified grants).

• The Gatsby Charitable Foundation — “The RSC Acting Companies are generously supported by The Gatsby Charitable Foundation” (source page)
• Hawthornden Foundation — “New Work at the RSC is generously supported by Hawthornden Foundation and The Drue and H.J. Heinz II Charitable Trust” (source page)
• The Drue and H.J. Heinz II Charitable Trust — “New Work at the RSC is generously supported by Hawthornden Foundation and The Drue and H.J. Heinz II Charitable Trust” (source page)
• Culture Recovery Fund — “The work of the RSC is supported by the Culture Recovery Fund” (source page)

Public profiles (found on the charity’s own website): facebook (229,077 likes) · instagram (209K followers)

Structured financials (annual return, FY ending 31/03/2025)

Reported reserves equal ~0.4 months of spending — in the bottom quarter for charities its size (median 4.6 months; benchmarks).

Per its annual return, largest income source: Charitable activities (78% of income) — components as reported reconcile to the return’s total income; not from the accounts narrative.

Per its annual return, cost of raising funds: 2.4% of total income — below the median for charities its size (3.8%) (benchmarks).

Trustees · trustee networks

• Shriti Vinodkant Vaderachair
• Amanda Joycelyn Parker
• Andrew James Miller MBE · trustee of 1 other charity
• Anna Katherine Lucy Sedgley · trustee of 1 other charity
• Geoffrey Barton
• Jonathan Paul French Smith · trustee of 1 other charity
• Liz Vernon
• MARK THOMPSON
• Nicholas Robert Hytner
• Professor Ayanna Thompson
• Professor Emma Josephine Smith · trustee of 1 other charity
• Sir Nicholas John Varney
• Winsome May Pinnock · trustee of 1 other charity

Trustee list from the Charity Commission register (current, not historical).

Operates in: Scotland · Throughout England And Wales · United States

Income and spending

Common questions

Known funders

Grants to this charity found in funders’ own accounts filings.

Government & lottery funding

Grants to this charity published as open data by government and lottery funders (360Giving).

Funders of similar charities

Funders whose accounts show grants to charities similar to this one (and no recorded grant to this charity) — a starting list for fundraisers.

Charities like this

Semantically similar by activities and financial character, from our analysed corpus. Compare with THE PRIMARY SHAKESPEARE COMPANY.

• THE PRIMARY SHAKESPEARE COMPANY income £522k
• ROYAL EXCHANGE THEATRE COMPANY LIMITED income £7.3m
• SOUTH LONDON THEATRE CENTRE LIMITED income £183k
• BRISTOL OLD VIC AND THEATRE ROYAL TRUST LIMITED income £7.6m
• COMPANY THREE THEATRE income £554k
• THE SHAKESPEARE GLOBE TRUST income £31.5m

Side by side with its peers

Each row is that charity’s latest analysed filing; every value is quote-backed on its own page.