The Royal Shakespeare Company is to take five of its UK productions to three cities across the United States in Summer 2000.

In addition to a thee-play repertoire at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York in May and the Taming of the Shrew tour to San Francisco in June, the company has announced that its highly-praised production of Macbeth, is to transfer to the International Festival of Arts and ideas in New Haven, Connecticut following sell-out runs in Stratford-upon-Avon and London.

With original UK casts, the five productions that visit the three US cities convey the breadth of the RSC's diversity and continue the Company's commitment to performing its work in the United States.

The five casts represent an astonishing range of talent, with established actors like RSC Associate Artists Antony Sher and Harriet Walter (both Macbeth), TONY Award winner Margaret Tyzack (The Family Reunion), Josette Simon (A Midsummer Night's Dream) and John Woodvine (Don Carlos) accompanying some of the RSC's promising, emerging younger actors: Ray Fearon, Rupert Penry Jones (both Don Carlos), Zoe Waites (The Family Reunion), Stuart McQuarrie and Monica Dolan (both The Taming of the Shrew).

The Brooklyn Academy of Music host the RSC's three week residency across two theatres, during which three productions will be presented:

RSC Artistic Director Adrian Noble's production of TS Eliot's rarely-seen The Family Reunion (10-13 May); a staging of Friedrich Schiller's historical tragedy Don Carlos from director Gale Edwards (16-20 May); and A Midsummer Night's Dream, directed by RSC Associate Director Michael Boyd (21-27 May).

New Haven's International Festival of Arts and ideas will see the next RSC production, Macbeth, starring Antony Sher and Harriet Walter (15-25 June).

The RSC returns to New Haven following its hugely successful staging of Troilus and Cressida and A Month in the Country at the 1999 Festival.

Lindsay Posner's radical new vision of The Taming of the Shrew is the final RSC production to be staged in the US this Summer, presented as a highlight of the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival (22 June - 2 July).

The RSC has performed regularly in the US since 1913, with seven of its productions playing on Broadway, cumulatively receiving ten TONY awards and forty nominations.

This summer more than 100 artists will present the five plays on both coasts.

RSC Artistic Director Adrian Noble said:

"We are delighted that such a significant production as Gregory Doran's Macbeth is able to join our four other productions in the United States this summer.

"I believe that Shakespeare is one of the few truly international dramatists, and it is important that the RSC tours as many productions as possible to an equally wide global audience.

"We continue to have a special bond with the United States, and hope to carry on developing stimulating relationships with US partners, artists and audiences."