Michelle Terry to step down as Shakespeare’s Globe artistic director

Michelle Terry will step down as artistic director of Shakespeare’s Globe at the end of 2027, after ten years in the role.

It has also been announced that Terry, who will mark 20 years performing on the Globe’s stages in 2027, will return to the Globe Theatre next summer to reprise her performance as Mother Courage in Mother Courage and Her Children. The production, translated by Anna Jordan and directed by Globe associate artist Elle While, will run from 10 June to 17 July 2027.

Terry became artistic director in 2017, with her tenure focused on making Shakespeare and the Globe accessible to a wider audience. During her time in the role, more than 2,000 actors will have worked with the organisation across 77 productions, which are expected to have been seen by more than 2.3 million people from over 190 countries by the end of her tenure.

She has commissioned 25 new plays, 63 per cent of which were written by women and 26 per cent by global majority writers. These include Emilia, written by Morgan Lloyd Malcolm, which transferred to the West End’s Vaudeville Theatre in 2019 and went on to win three Olivier Awards in 2020.

In a statement, Terry said: “Next year it will be ten years since I began this seminal role and 20 years since I first performed on that incredibly special stage. 2027 also marks 30 years since the Globe Theatre opened. So it is only at the beginning of its own ‘eventful history’, and I can say in no uncertain terms that it has been the greatest privilege of my life to have been a part of these formative years. These theatres are the most extraordinary theatres in the world. We have the privilege of being able to ask: what can we do here that cannot be done anywhere else.

“I inherited a vision that was to make Shakespeare and the Globe available and accessible for all, and I have dedicated my tenure to realising it, both in the work that we make and the ways that we make it. Everything we have done has been created and curated with the art, artists and audience in mind.

“We have needed to find the balance between our clear charitable purpose and very real commercial imperatives. We have held onto the £5 ticket not just so everyone can afford to go to the theatre but because it is everyone’s right to go to the theatre. We have put these plays and the spaces to work and addressed some of the most urgent issues facing people and the planet.

“Every single day I have had the privilege to witness first-hand the benefits of theatre and Shakespeare on the young and the young at heart, to experience the socially cohesive power of arts engagement and the long-term impact this can have on the individual and the collective.

“I applied for this job because of my love of Shakespeare’s plays and these spaces. It is because of the people who I have had the honour to work with that I leave more astonished by Shakespeare’s plays, more excited about the potential of these playhouses, and more convinced than ever that theatre is the most necessary of AI-proof art forms.

“The ache I feel at saying goodbye is only equal to the love and pride I feel for having been here. I look forward immensely to the next year and to championing Shakespeare and the Globe forever.”

Shakespeare’s Globe chief executive Stella Kanu added: “Michelle Terry was one of the principal reasons I wanted to join the Globe, and working alongside her has deepened my admiration for her artistic courage, her rigorous thinking and her commitment to inclusion. Her extraordinary understanding of Shakespeare and humanity gives other artists the confidence and freedom to explore and opens the plays to audiences familiar and new.

“I congratulate her on all she has achieved and I am proud to work alongside her and look forward to everything we will continue to build together before she moves on at the end of 2027.”

Future leadership announcements will come in due course.