The Royal Shakespeare Company

  • 250+ artists urge UK theatres to end Bloomberg Philanthropies ties over Israel war crimes

    Playwrights Caryl Churchill, Sabrina Mahfouz, and Hannah Khalil and actors Alex Lawther and Billy Howle are among 262 artists calling on five leading British theatres to end partnerships with Bloomberg Philanthropies over its ties to Israel.

    Bloomberg Philanthropies funds the Bloomberg-Sagol Center for City Leadership at Tel Aviv University. The centre provides leadership training to mayors and municipal officials, including those governing illegal settlements in Palestine’s occupied West Bank. The letter sets out new evidence documenting the centre’s complicity in a “violent project of settlement that the International Court of Justice has declared to be a war crime”.

  • The Royal Shakespeare Company, the fashion label and the IDF

    Artists for Palestine UK is dismayed to learn of  the Royal Shakespeare Company’s collaboration with the US fashion label Alice + Olivia on “a licensed apparel collection inspired by Shakespeare’s literary works”. A + O  is a label that declared itself “in support of Israel” while Israel was indiscriminately bombing civilians in Gaza and had already killed hundreds of children. As the death toll rose, the label hosted a fund-raising event for US Friends of the Israeli Defence Force, designated ‘official US partner’ by the Chief of Staff of the Israeli military. Today, following Artists for Palestine UK’s findings and the subsequent backlash from artists, The Stage reports that RSC artistic directors will convene a special meeting of its ethics committee.