[category]
[title]
Aussie film star Elizabeth Debicki is no stranger to the British stage, having starred in the National Theatre’s Red Barn a decade ago, and opposite Ewan McGregor in the West End’s My Master Builder last year. She’s never appeared in any Shakespeare at a professional level before, but that will all change next year when she forms the starring attraction in the RSC’s 2027 Stratford-upon-Avon summer season by appearing as the company’s first ever female Richard II (Apr 10-May 22 2027). If she can carry off the verse, it promises to be a smart piece of casting: Richard is often portrayed as a fey, otherworldly figure – casting a six foot two woman in the role will only accentuate this. Daniel Raggett will direct the production in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre.
Before that in the RST will be director Elizabeth Freestone’s modern take on Coriolanus (Feb 6-Mar 20 2027), considering Shakespeare’s drama about a disaffected Roman general through the lens of resource scarcity and contemporary populist politics. Damian Maloney will star as Coriolanus.
Later on in the summer, the RST will play host to the beloved Romeo & Juliet (Jul 6-Aug 28 2027), in a production we don’t know a huge amount more about yet, but will be directed by Joanna Bowman.
If it’s an all-Shakespeare line-up in the RST, the smaller Swan Theatre is a little less predictable next year. Its 2027 will kick off with Born with Teeth (Feb 12-Apr 3), Liz Duffy Adams’ two-hander about Shakespeare and Kit Marlowe’s intimate relationship. Daniel Evans’ production ran in the West End a couple of years ago with Ncuti Gatwa starring: this will probably be a rather less starry affair, but a smaller space will hopefully suit the play.
After that will come an ambitious staging of Virginia Woolf’s peerless Mrs Dalloway (Apr 16-Jul 12 2027), with Zoe Cooper on adapting duties on the titanic Brit novelist’s novel about the interconnected lives of the titular socialite and a broken World War I veteran. Tamara Harvey directs.
That’ll be followed by another ambitious literary adaptation as Sami Ibrahim tackles Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi (Jul 3-Aug 21 2027), her speculative fiction second novel about a man who lives in a house that seems to be an entire world, and his dawning realisation that something is very wrong in it.
Public booking for the RSC’s spring/summer 2027 season will open October 21.
The 10 best new London theatre productions opening in October 2026.
Review: Gillian Anderson stars in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? @sohoplace.