Gregory Doran
Gregory Doran is an English 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, 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.
He is on the Board of Governors for The Royal Shakespeare Company.
Background
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 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, 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
- Macbeth
- King John
- 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
- 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
- Othello with Antony Sher and Sello Maake Ncube
- A Midsummer Night's Dream
- 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
- Coriolanus with Will Houston, Janet Suzman and Timothy West which toured to Madrid and Washington DC
- 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
- Film adaptation of award-winning production of Hamlet was broadcast on BBC on Boxing Day.
- , a play by David Edgar, to mark the 400th anniversary of the publication of the King James Bible.
- 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.
- Doran directed David Tennant in the title role of Richard II at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre and the Barbican.
- 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.
- Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman with Antony Sher in the role of Willy Loman, Alex Hassell as Biff and Harriet Walter as Linda Loman.
- Shakespeare's Henry V
- Directed Shakespeare's King Lear with Antony Sher in the title role
- The Tempest
- Directed a puppet-based performance of Venus & Adonis
- Directed and Imperium: Dictator, based on the Cicero trilogy by Robert Harris
- Directed the return of Antony Sher in King Lear at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre
- Directed Troilus and Cressida
- Directed The Boy in the Dress at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre
Non-RSC productions
- 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
TV