Dear Wooster Group supporters,

The Wooster Group is teaming up with the Royal Shakespeare Company on a production of TROILUS & CRESSIDA, Shakespeare’s tale of the Trojan War, to premiere at the London 2012 Festival during the Olympics.

We know it sounds nuts, but the RSC and their associate director Rupert Goold approached us about this unlikely collaboration. We found it irresistible—the lodestone of British culture as manifest in the RSC versus the experimental aesthetic of our New York ensemble all coming together at the World Shakespeare Festival as part of the Cultural Olympiad.

The gameplan is this: The RSC will play the Greeks. The Wooster Group will play the Trojans. And just as the play is structured as a series of alternating scenes between the two camps, our rehearsals will be similarly divided. The Wooster Group will build the Trojan world at the The Performing Garage and the RSC will build the Greek world in the UK. We will meet for five weeks of rehearsal together before opening in Stratford-upon-Avon in August 2012, followed by performances in London and New York.

Before we get to London, we need your help! As you can see on the timeline above, the RSC is covering the final portion of our rehearsal period. But we've always built our work around extended development time, which has enabled us to deliver the radically imaginative stagings that we're known for. Please contribute what you can. Any amount will help us put together our Trojan camp. And we look forward to showing you the piece in New York next year.

Much love,

The Wooster Group