Sir Gregory Doran

Gregory Doran has been described as “one of the great Shakespearians of his generation” (The Sunday Times); “one of the supreme Shakespeare directors of our era” (The Financial Times), and “one of the finest present day directors of Shakespeare” (The Sunday Telegraph).

He joined the Royal Shakespeare Company as an actor in 1987, and became its Artistic Director in 2012, programming his first season from September 2013. He directed David Tennant as Richard II, the first production in the RSC’s “Live From Stratford-upon-Avon” programme – a commitment to broadcast all of Shakespeare’s plays to cinemas across the country and around the world.

Notable RSC productions include Antony and Cleopatra with Harriet Walter and Patrick Stewart, Hamlet with David Tennant, All’s Well that Ends Well with Judi Dench, a puppet masque of Venus and Adonis, and a digitally pioneering production of The Tempest with Simon Russell Beale.

His 2012 RSC production of Julius Caesar with an all Black British cast was described by veteran British theatre critic Michael Billington as one the ten best productions in the 60-year history of the RSC and as one of his ten best nights in the theatre ever.

Greg’s long relationship with his husband, Sir Antony Sher, produced many acclaimed productions, including Titus Andronicus, Macbeth, The Winter’s Tale, Othello, Henry IV parts One and Two; Cyrano de Bergerac; Death of a Salesman; and King Lear.

Greg delivered the prestigious Richard Dimbleby Lecture on BBC1 in 2016. He was awarded the Sam Wanamaker Prize for pioneering work in Shakespearean Theatre in 2012 and won a special Oliver Award for outstanding achievement for a season of Jacobean plays in 2002. In 2023, he was the recipient of the prestigious Pragnell Shakespeare Prize presented at the annual Birthday Lunch in Stratford-upon-Avon.

He is an honorary associate of the British Shakespeare Association, an honorary senior research fellow of the Shakespeare Institute, and a trustee of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

Greg directed a production of Richard III, with Arthur Hughes, the first disabled actor to play the role for the RSC, in 2022; and Cymbeline (2023) marked his 50th production for the Royal Shakespeare Company. He stepped down as Artistic Director in 2022.

He took up the Cameron Macintosh Visiting Professorship at Oxford University, for the academic year 2023-24, and directed The Two Gentlemen of Verona with the students.

Greg’s writing credits include Woza Shakespeare! co-authored with Antony Sher, (about their production of Titus Andronicus in South Africa in 1995); Shakespeare’s Lost Play: In Search of Cardenio; and The Shakespeare Almanac.

His latest book My Shakespeare: A Director’s Journey Through the First Folio was published by Bloomsbury in April 2023.

He was awarded a knighthood in the 2024 New Year’s Honours List.