Gregory Doran

Gregory Doran (born 24 November 1958) is a British director known for his Shakespearean work. The Sunday Times called him 'one of the great Shakespearians of his generation'.

Doran is currently 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.

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.

Background

Doran was born in Huddersfield, but his family moved to Lancashire when he was six months old. He was educated at 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 as 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 the canon of Shakespeare's plays for the RSC.

1999

• The Winter's Tale
• Timon of Athens with Michael Pennington

2000

• Macbeth (which was also made into a Channel 4 film)

2001

• King John

2002

• Much Ado About Nothing with Harriet Walter and Nicholas le Prevost
• 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

• The Taming of the Shrew
• Fletcher's sequel, The Tamer Tamed with Alexandra Gilbreath and Jasper Britton
• All's Well That Ends Well took Judi Dench back to the RSC after 25 years

2004

• Othello with Antony Sher and Sello Maake Ncube

2005

• A Midsummer Night's Dream

2006

• Antony and Cleopatra with Harriet Walter, and Patrick Stewart who both returned to the RSC after 24 years
• Merry Wives The Musical, with Dame Judi Dench and Simon Callow

2007

• Coriolanus 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)

2008

• Doran directed a company in three plays in the Courtyard Theatre including a revival of his 2005 production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, plus Love's Labour's Lost and Hamlet which both featured David Tennant

2009

• Film adaptation of award-winning production of Hamlet was broadcast on BBC on Boxing Day.

2011

• Written on the Heart, a play by David Edgar, to mark the 400th anniversary of the publication of the King James Bible.

2012

• Directed Julius Caesar for the World Shakespeare Festival, which played in Stratford-upon-Avon, London, Moscow, New York and Ohio. For Winter 2012 he directed The Orphan of Zhao (Swan Theatre).

2013

• Doran directed David Tennant in the title role of Richard II at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre and the Barbican.

2014

• Directed Henry IV, Part 1 and Henry IV, Part 2 at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. The production toured the UK, played at the Barbican, London and was screened live in cinemas.
• Directed The Witch of Edmonton in the Swan Theatre with Eileen Atkins in the title role.

2015

• Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman with Antony Sher in the role of Willy Loman, Alex Hassall as Biff and Harriet Walter as Linda Loman.
• Shakespeare's Henry V

2016

• Will direct Shakespeare's King Lear with Antony Sher in the title role

Non-RSC productions

Doran has directed various 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, Donmar 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

TV

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.

Books

In 2009, Doran's Shakespeare Almanac was published.

Personal life

He and frequent collaborator Sir Antony Sher have been together since 1987, and entered into a civil partnership in 2005. They married on the 10th anniversary of their civil partnership on 21st December 2015.

External links

• Gregory Doran at the Internet Movie Database
• An audio biography of Gregory Doran