RSC announces 2027 summer season including Damien Molony, Elizabeth Debicki and new Mrs Dalloway and Piranesi adaptations

The RSC has announced details of its programme for summer 2027.

Highlights include four Shakespeare plays, including their first staging of Richard II with a female lead and two world premiere literary adaptations, as well as the return of a WhatsOnStage Award-nominated play.

Opening the season in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, RSC associate director Elizabeth Freestone returns to direct Damien Molony in the titule role of Coriolanus.

Running from 6 February to 20 March, with a press night on 16 February, this revival examines Shakespeare’s political tragedy through the lens of contemporary populism, societal instability and elemental scarcities in a turbulent world.

The creative team also includes set and co-costume designer Tom Piper, co-costume designer Natasha Ward, lighting designer Oliver Fenwick, composer and sound designer Adrienne Quartly, movement director Sarita Piotrowski, fight director Kev McCurdy and casting director Matthew Dewsbury.

After that, Elizabeth Debicki will make her RSC debut in Richard II. We have detailed that story more here.

Joanna Bowman will then direct the romantic tragedy Romeo and Juliet across the summer. It will run in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre from 6 July to 28 August, with a press night on 15 July. The creative team also includes set and costume designer Joanna Scotcher, with further details to be announced.

The WhatsOnStage Award-nominated play Born With Teeth will transfer to Stratford-upon-Avon following its West End run. Further details can be found here.

Born With Teeth replaces the previously scheduled Othello, directed by Monique Touko and starring Sharon D Clarke in the title role, as Sharon takes time to undergo treatment for cancer. The production is currently postponed with further details to be announced in due course.

The world premiere stage adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s novel Mrs Dalloway will be mounted in the Swan Theatre. Directed by RSC co-artistic director Tamara Harvey, the piece has been adapted by former RSC writer-in-residence Zoe Cooper in her playwriting debut for the company. It will run from 16 April to 12 June, with a press night on 27 April.

Joining Harvey on the creative team are set and costume designer Anna Fleischle, lighting designer Ryan Day, sound designer Claire Windsor, movement director Lucie Pankhurst, dramaturg Elizabeth Freestone and casting director Charlotte Sutton.

This will be followed by the world premiere of Piranesi. Based on the award-winning novel by Susanna Clarke, the stage adaptation invites audiences into an immersive theatrical world. It is adapted for the stage by Sami Ibrahim and directed by Ned Bennett, with set and costume designer Georgia Lowe, lighting designer Jessica Hung Han Yun and dramaturg Rebecca Latham, with further names to be announced. The production runs in the Swan Theatre from 3 July to 21 August, with a press night on 14 July.

Finally, a new First Encounters with Shakespeare Production will run in The Other Place from 16 July to 4 September, with an opening on 27 July. Francesca Goodridge directs The Comedy of Errors in a new production presented in association with Sherman Theatre. The condensed 80-minute piece will visit partner schools and theatres across England, with details to be announced. The Comedy of Errors tour is supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.

RSC co-artistic directors Evans and Harvey said: “In these four thrilling Shakespeare adaptations, brought to life by some of our most exciting contemporary artists, we encounter his mastery across the genres – one Roman, one history, one tragedy and one comedy.

“From Joanna Bowman’s visceral exploration of obsessive first love to Elizabeth Freestone’s prescient study of the conditions which allow contemporary populism to thrive, each of these unique stagings reveals to us how Shakespeare continues to speak to our world now and to the innately human in all of us.

In Piranesi and Mrs Dalloway, we see a new generation grapple with a century-old theatrical preoccupation: the exploration of inner-life on stage, giving audiences a space in which to explore the deeply human conflicts that make us who we are.

“Together, they form a season that invites us to explore how inner conflict and external influences collide to shape us, how we see the world, how we show up and how we connect with one another. We look forward to sharing it with audiences.”

Priority booking for members and supporters for all new productions opens from5 October with public booking opening from 21 October.