Gregory Doran has been hailed as "one of the great Shakespearians of his generation" by The Sunday Times, "one of the supreme Shakespeare directors of our era" by The Financial Times, and "one of the finest present day directors of Shakespeare" by The Sunday Telegraph.
He joined the Royal Shakespeare Company as an actor in 1987, eventually becoming its Artistic Director in 2012, where he programmed his first season from September 2013. Notably, he directed David Tennant in Richard II, the inaugural production in the RSC's "Live From Stratford-upon-Avon" initiative, which aimed to broadcast all of Shakespeare's plays to cinemas worldwide.
Throughout his tenure, Doran has directed numerous productions, including 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 production of Julius Caesar featuring an all-Black British cast was praised by veteran British theatre critic Michael Billington as one of the top ten productions in the RSC's 60-year history and one of his ten best nights in the theatre ever.
Doran's long-term relationship with his husband, Sir Antony Sher, has resulted in 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.
He has received numerous accolades, including the prestigious Richard Dimbleby Lecture on BBC1 in 2016, the Sam Wanamaker Prize for pioneering work in Shakespearean Theatre in 2012, and a special Oliver Award for outstanding achievement for a season of Jacobean plays in 2002. In 2023, he was awarded the Pragnell Shakespeare Prize at the annual Birthday Lunch in Stratford-upon-Avon.
Doran 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. He stepped down as Artistic Director in 2022.
In 2023, he directed Cymbeline, marking his 50th production for the Royal Shakespeare Company, and took up the Cameron Macintosh Visiting Professorship at Oxford University for the academic year 2023-24. He also directed The Two Gentlemen of Verona with the students.
Doran's writing credits include Woza Shakespeare! co-authored with Antony Sher, 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.
In the 2024 New Year's Honours List, he was awarded a knighthood for his services to drama and the arts.
