Dr Faustus (RSC)

There is a radio version (radio 3 for the 400 anniversary of marlowes death ) out on bittorrent.
The Marlowe socity have a staging history :-
www.marlowe-society.org/marlowe/work/massacre/ref/weblinks.html#wkweblinkproductions
There was a production in The Other Place, Stratford in 1985.

Marlowe Society is amateur, so maybe Rose said first professional?

I attended a couple of events in The Fortnight at The Other Place in October 1985. It was a fringe festival produced unofficially by the acting company in Stratford at the time, with Fiona Shaw as one of the driving forces (Les Liaisons Dangereuses had recently opened). So, none of it was produced by the RSC, or indeed by any other professional company - it was all done for love, and they put so much work into it. Even to the extent of The Other Place staff personally doing the catering for it. So much work went into that fortnight.

One of the major forces which motivated it was the recognition of the women actors that they were underused and sidelined in the company. I attended a talk by Sheila Rowbotham followed by a lengthy open discussion about women at the RSC and in theatre in general. Harriet Walter was there, having just opened as Skinner in The Castle for the RSC in The Pit, (which was a stupendous performance, sparring with Ian McDiarmid). The only contribution from the floor which countered the general mood came from Alan Rickman: "I was directed in a play by a woman once. (Pause). It wasn't a very good experience."

A question came from a young Stratford resident who often attended a number of RST previews and so got to understand the process of testing and revising in previews. He said that in the first preview of Measure for Measure Juliet Stevenson had delivered the final (?) speech as a direct challenge but that she never did so again at later performances. Juliet Stevenson replied that Yes she had wanted to do that and had done so at the first preview but that it hadn't been allowed to stay and so it had been dropped in all later performances.

As a result of this activity, these actors formed an official RSC Women's Group and the RSC agreed to commission a play from a woman playwright to be directed by a woman director and with a predominantly female cast, as the final production of this company's season, in The Pit. (In those days, it was standard for most of the Stratford season to transfer directly to the Barbican Centre, where some new productions were added to the transfers). This play was Heresies by Deborah Levy.

EDIT: I've just re-read xanderl's post and see that this was actually the Fourth RSC/WHS Festival, so obviously my recollection that it all sprang from the women's group is wrong. However, I still think that these festivals were an opportunity for members of the current RSC company to make their own work and show it for one or two performances. For example, I saw a play written by Margery Mason, another of those actors, and played by herself and various other actors from within the company.

Now returned to RSC