# Gregory Doran

Sir Gregory Doran (born 24 November 1958) is an English director known for his Shakespearean work. The Sunday Times called him 'one of the great Shakespearians of his generation'.
Doran was artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), succeeding Michael Boyd in September 2012. In an interview, announcing his appointment, Doran said that whilst Boyd had concentrated on the 'Company', he would be concentrating on the 'Shakespeare' in the Royal Shakespeare Company logo. Since April 2022 he is director emeritus at the Royal Shakespeare Company.
His notable productions include a production of Macbeth starring Antony Sher, which was filmed for Channel 4 in 2001, as well as Hamlet in 2008, starring David Tennant and Patrick Stewart.

## Early life and education

Doran was born in Huddersfield, but his family moved to Lancashire when he was six months old. He was educated at St Pius X Catholic Preparatory School and Preston Catholic College. He attended Bristol University studying English and Drama, where he set up his own theatre company with fellow student Chris Grady, presenting Shakespeare and related classics. He then trained as an actor at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.
He received an honorary doctorate from Bristol University in July 2011 and an Honorary Degree from the University of Warwick in July 2013.

## Career

Doran left the Bristol Old Vic School early having been invited to direct A Midsummer Night's Dream at Jamestown Community College in upstate New York. He then went to Nottingham Playhouse as an actor, before becoming Assistant Director then Associate Director, directing his own productions, including Waiting for Godot and Long Day's Journey into Night.
After a very brief acting career in TV, he joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1987 initially as an actor (as Solanio in The Merchant of Venice and Octavius Caesar in Julius Caesar) then became Assistant Director the following season.
He directed his first RSC production in 1992, commissioning Derek Walcott to write an adaptation of Homer's Odyssey which was performed at The Other Place.
In 1995 he directed his partner Antony Sher in the lead role of Titus Andronicus at the Market Theatre, Johannesburg, South Africa. This controversial production, which toured to the National Theatre, is the subject of their book, Woza Shakespeare!
He returned to the RSC in 1996, becoming an Associate Director, and directing Jane Lapotaire, Ian Hogg and Paul Jesson in All is True (or Henry VIII), his first Shakespeare for the company. Since then, Doran has directed over half of Shakespeare's plays for the RSC.
Doran took compassionate leave from his role at the RSC in September 2021 to care for his husband, Antony Sher, who was terminally ill. His deputy, Erica Whyman, became acting artistic director. The RSC announced Doran was formally stepping down as artistic director in April 2022, becoming artistic director emeritus until the end of 2023.

### TV and books

Doran contributed to Michael Wood's BBC series In Search of Shakespeare, and filmed a documentary for BBC Four, called A Midsummer Night's Dreaming.
In 2009, Doran's Shakespeare Almanac was published.

## Personal life

He and frequent collaborator Sir Antony Sher had, when they entered into a civil partnership in 2005, been together since 1987. They married 10 years after their civil partnership, on 30 December 2015. Sher died in December 2021.
Doran was appointed Knight Bachelor in the 2024 New Year Honours for services to the Arts.

## Theatre productions
### RSC productions

| Year | Production | Playwright | Venue | Notes |
| 1999 | The Winter's Tale | William Shakespeare | Royal Shakespeare Theatre | |
| 1999 | Timon of Athens | William Shakespeare | Royal Shakespeare Theatre | with Michael Pennington |
| 2000 | Macbeth | William Shakespeare | Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon | also made into a Channel 4 film |
| 2001 | King John | William Shakespeare | Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon | |
| 2002 | Much Ado About Nothing | William Shakespeare | Royal Shakespeare Theatre | with Harriet Walter and Nicholas le Prevost |
| 2002 | | | | Doran supervised a season of seldom-performed Jacobean plays, including the debatedly Shakespearean Edward III and works by Philip Massinger, John Fletcher, Ben Jonson, John Marston and George Chapman which earned Doran a Laurence Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement of the Year |
| 2003 | Taming of the Shrew | William Shakespeare | Royal Shakespeare Theatre | |
| 2003 | The Tamer Tamed | John Fletcher | Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon | with Alexandra Gilbreath and Jasper Britton |
| 2003 | All's Well That Ends Well | William Shakespeare | Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon | with Judi Dench whose first time back to the RSC after 25 years |
| 2004 | Othello | William Shakespeare | Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon | with Antony Sher and Sello Maake Ncube |
| 2004 | Venus & Adonis | William Shakespeare | Royal Shakespeare Theatre | Puppet based performance |
| 2005 | A Midsummer Night's Dream | William Shakespeare | Royal Shakespeare Theatre | |
| 2006 | Antony and Cleopatra | William Shakespeare | Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon | with Harriet Walter, and Patrick Stewart who both returned to the RSC after 24 years |
| 2006 | Merry Wives The Musical | Based on the play by William Shakespeare, adapted by Gregory Doran, music by Paul Englishby, lyrics by Ranjit Bolt | Royal Shakespeare Theatre | with Dame Judi Dench and Simon Callow |
| 2007 | Coriolanus | William Shakespeare | Royal Shakespeare Theatre | with Will Houston, Janet Suzman and Timothy West which toured to Madrid and Washington DC (the final production in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre before it closed for redevelopment, re-opening in winter 2010/11) |
| 2007 | Venus & Adonis | William Shakespeare | Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon | Revival of 2004 production |
| 2008 | A Midsummer Night's Dream | William Shakespeare | Courtyard Theatre | Revival of 2005 production |
| 2008 | Hamlet | William Shakespeare | Courtyard Theatre | with David Tennant and Patrick Stewart, also transferred to the Novello Theatre and adapted into BBC 2009 film |
| 2008 | Love's Labour's Lost | William Shakespeare | Courtyard Theatre | |
| 2011 | Written on the Heart | David Edgar | Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon Duchess Theatre | to mark the 400th anniversary of the publication of the King James Bible. |
| 2012 | Julius Caesar | William Shakespeare | Royal Shakespeare Theatre | for the World Shakespeare Festival, which played in Stratford-upon-Avon, London, Moscow, New York and Ohio. |
| 2012 | The Orphan of Zhao | Ji Junxiang | Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon | |
| 2013 | Richard II | William Shakespeare | Royal Shakespeare Theatre Barbican Centre | with David Tennant |
| 2014 | Henry IV, Part 1 and Henry IV, Part 2 | William Shakespeare | Royal Shakespeare Theatre Barbican Centre | |
| 2014 | The Witch of Edmonton | William Rowley, Thomas Dekker and John Ford | Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon | with Eileen Atkins |
| 2015 | Death of a Salesman | Arthur Miller | Royal Shakespeare Theatre Noël Coward Theatre | with Antony Sher in the role of Willy Loman, Alex Hassell as Biff and Harriet Walter as Linda Loman. |
| 2015 | Henry V | William Shakespeare | Royal Shakespeare Theatre | |
| 2016 | King Lear | William Shakespeare | Royal Shakespeare Theatre | with Antony Sher |
| 2016 | The Tempest | William Shakespeare | Royal Shakespeare Theatre | with Simon Russell Beale |
| 2017 | Venus & Adonis | William Shakespeare | Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon | Revival of 2004 and 2007 productions |
| 2017 | Imperium: The Cicero Plays | Mike Poulton, based on the Cicero trilogy by Robert Harris | Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon Gielgud Theatre | |
| 2018 | King Lear | William Shakespeare | Royal Shakespeare Theatre | with Antony Sher |
| 2018 | Troilus and Cressida | William Shakespeare | Royal Shakespeare Theatre | |
| 2019 | The Boy in the Dress | based on the novel by David Walliams, book by Mark Ravenhill, music and lyrics by Robbie Williams and Guy Chambers | Royal Shakespeare Theatre |
| 2019 | Measure for Measure | William Shakespeare | Royal Shakespeare Theatre | |
| 2022 | Richard III | William Shakespeare | Royal Shakespeare Theatre | |
| 2023 | Cymbeline | William Shakespeare | Royal Shakespeare Theatre |

### Non-RSC

Doran has directed productions outside the RSC including:
* The York Mystery Plays in the Millennium production in York Minster, 2000
* The Real Inspector Hound and Black Comedy, 1998, Comedy Theatre, London
* Mahler's Conversion by Ronald Harwood, Aldwych Theatre, London
* The Giant by Antony Sher, Hampstead Theatre, London
* Anjin: the English Samurai by Mike Poulton
* The Merchant of Venice, Galaxy Theatre, Tokyo
* The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Oxford Playhouse, Oxford, 2024