Michael Boyd to be Guest on Downstage Center

The American Theatre Wing and XM Satellite Radio proudly present an interview with Royal Shakespeare Company Artistic Director Michael Boyd, on their weekly theatrical interview show, "Downstage Center," on XM's On Broadway (XM Channel 28).

Boyd will appear as the special guest on Friday, July 4 at 6 p.m. The show will repeat on Saturday, June 5 at noon, Sunday, June 6 at 7 p.m., and Wednesday, July 9 at midnight (all times eastern; transmission is simultaneous across the country).  The program becomes available as streaming audio and podcast from www.americantheatrewing.org and iTunes beginning Monday afternoon, July 7.
 
Royal Shakespeare Company artistic director Michael Boyd gives an overview of the company's work, including its acclaimed "Complete Works" Festival and the recent two-year journey through the "Histories" cycle.  He also talks about his own evolution as a theatre artist, with significant stints in Moscow and Glasgow; the experience of joining the RSC as Associate Director and later rising to the artistic directorship; the work he had to do addressing the variety of troubles that surrounded the RSC as the time of his appointment; why he speaks of 'knocking Shakespeare off his pedestal'; the status of the rebuilding of the main theatre in Stratford; and what his plans are for the company in the next few years.
 
Michael Boyd has been the Artistic Director of Royal Shakespeare Company since early 2003. Under his leadership, the RSC staged the Complete Works Festival in 2006, performing all of Shakespeare's 37 plays, long poems and sonnets, with 30 visiting companies from across the world. From 1996, Boyd was as an Associate Director of the RSC, working alongside Michael Attenborough and two other Associate Directors, Gregory Doran and Steven Pimlott. In 2001 he won the Olivier Award for Best Director for his productions of Henry VI parts I, II, III and Richard III, part of the RSC's This England: The Histories season. Additional work for the RSC includes: Richard II, Henry IV parts I and II, Henry V, Henry VI, parts I, II, III and Richard III for the Complete Works Festival, Twelfth Night, The Pilate Workshop, Hamlet, The Tempest, Henry VI, parts I, II and III, Richard III, Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Troilus and Cressida, Measure for Measure, Much Ado About Nothing, The Spanish Tragedy and The Broken Heart. Boyd was founding Artistic Director of the Tron Theatre in Glasgow from 1985.  His productions there included The Trick is to Keep Breathing, Macbeth, Good, The Real World, Crow, Century's End, Salvation, The Baby, and Clyde Nouveau, The Guid Sisters. Other theatre productions include: Drama Director of the New Beginnings Festival of Soviet Arts, Miss Julie, Commedia, Othello, A Passion in Six Days, Hard to Get, Hedda Gabler, and The Alchemist.

Each new "Downstage Center" is regularly broadcast at 6 p.m. on Fridays, Saturdays at noon, Sundays at 7 p.m. and Wednesdays at 12 a.m. (all times EST). Following the initial run on XM, each program is made available for free, on-demand, internationally as both streaming audio and podcast on ATW's Web site, www.americantheatrewing.org.