Sam Troughton plays Marcus Brutus, left, and Hannah Young is Portia in the Royal Shakespeare Company production of Julius Caesar, one of five productions that it may perform in its New York residency. (Ellie Kurttz/Lincoln Center Festival/Associated Press)

Britain's Royal Shakespeare Company will spend six weeks across the pond in 2011, performing in New York in a theatre that's a replica of its home in Stratford-upon-Avon.

The innovative theatre company has struck a deal with the Lincoln Center in New York and Ohio State University to perform 45 plays next summer in the former Park Avenue Armory.

An ensemble of 44 Shakespearean actors will be in New York under artistic director Michael Boyd, who announced the project Monday in New York.

They'll perform five plays from their 2009-10 repertoire, which includes Antony and Cleopatra, As You Like It, Julius Caesar, King Lear, Romeo and Juliet and The Winter's Tale.

The armoury, which has a soaring 55,000-square-foot drill hall and an array of exuberant period rooms, is being given new life as a centre for performing and visual arts.

To accommodate the Royal Shakespeare Company, the drill hall will be adapted with a thrust-stage auditorium that is a full-scale replica for the Courtyard Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon, where the theatre troupe currently performs.

"Our thrust stage, wrapping the audience around the action, allows people to reach out to our actors and to each other in a space which is both intimate and powerful," Boyd said. "I am delighted that we can recreate that intimacy right here in New York City in the extraordinary space of Park Avenue Armory."

First U.S. visit

It will take two weeks to build the stage, which will be a self-supporting structure inside the armoury, and another week to install scenery for five productions.

The historic Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon, currently under renovation, is due to reopen in late 2010.

The troupe is visiting the U.S. for the first time.

It doesn't travel light. Boyd said the company will need 425 costumes, 350 pairs of boots and shoes, 20 litres of fake blood and five tins of lychees (for eyeballs) to perform its five New York productions.

Boyd, who took up the position of artistic director in 2003, is credited with creating a powerful ensemble that performs the Bard at his best.

Among its recent collaborations was a 2007 production of Margaret Atwood's The Penelopiad with the National Arts Centre in Ottawa.

The collaboration with Ohio State will expose instructors to the RSC's method of engaging primary and secondary students with the works of William Shakespeare and includes programs for theatre students.