Theatre News

Shakespeare’s Globe announces 2025 summer season – including The Crucible

Arthur Miller, one-night-only experiences and a raft of Shakespeare favourites…

Alex Wood

Alex Wood

| London |

4 February 2025

Artwork for The Crucible, supplied by Shakespeare's Globe
Artwork for The Crucible, supplied by Shakespeare’s Globe

Shakespeare’s Globe has announced its summer season, running from April to October 2025.

Associate artistic director Sean Holmes will direct two productions in the season: Romeo and Juliet and The Merry Wives of Windsor, with casting for Romeo and Juliet, which opens the season on 25 April, also now revealed.

Merry Wives will open on 20 July and run through to September, and on the creative side features design by Grace Smart, text by Si Trinder, and voice by Gary Horner.

Ola Ince will return to Shakespeare’s Globe to direct a new revival of Arthur Miller’s seminal 20th century play The Crucible, running from 8 May to 12 July. The piece, grounded in the public hysteria surrounding accusations of witchcraft, will be designed by Amelia Jane Hankin, with Lindsay McAllister as assistant director, Renell Shaw as composer, and voice and text by Annemette Verspeak.

Artwork for The Crucible, supplied by Shakespeare's Globe
Artwork for Twelfth Night, supplied by Shakespeare’s Globe

Robin Belfield (director of the WhatsOnStage Award-nominated Princess Essex) will return with a new production of Twelfth Night from 8 August to 25 October. It has design by Jean Chan, with Simon Slater as composer and Ingrid Mackinnon as movement director. Belfield told WhatsOnStage today: “Totally thrilled to be returning to the Globe this season. Directing Princess Essex last summer, was a special moment for me working for the first time in such an incredible theatre.

“I can’t wait to return with one of my favourite plays, Twelfth Night. It’s a play that is so rich, shifting between riotous jubilance and tender heartbreak. It contains life’s full spectrum – love, grief, joy, woe, limitation and license.”

Owen Horsley makes his Globe directorial debut with Troilus and Cressida, running from 26 September to 26 October and designed by Ryan Dawson-Laight, while A Midsummer Night’s Dream: For One Night Only takes place on 14 September, directed by Blanche McIntyre. The show will see a company of actors unite on the day of the performance to tackle Shakespeare’s much-loved comedy.

Rough Magic, directed by Globe director of education Lucy Cuthbertson, returns to the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse from 19 July to 23 August.  Sarah Dickenson will join Shakespeare’s Globe as Writer-in-Residence in collaboration with Exeter Northcott Theatre, supported by Playwrights ’73. On 9 March, Shakespeare’s Globe welcomes Ramadan Tent Project to break fast in the Globe Theatre as part of Open Iftar 2025, while the Globe will host a collaboration with the World Health Organisation on 4 June, following the launch of a new relationship between the two organisations last year.

Michelle Terry, artistic director, said in a statement today: “This season at the Globe has artists and audience in mind as we try to balance well-known and beloved plays, with lesser known, but equally extraordinary ones. We hope this season strikes that balance; with these timely and timeless tales told by some of the most important artists working in British Theatre today.  

“We also hope this exciting season comes at a price that people can afford. A price that allows people to take a punt on a play they may not know, in an iconic theatre they may never have visited before, in the company of people that they know, as well as those they have never met.

“Last year, I’m incredibly proud that despite the precarity of the moment, 51 per cent, or precisely 220,351, of our tickets were available at £30 or under, and nearly 75,000 people not only saw a play, but were part of the experience with our unique and precious £5 Groundling ticket.”

Tickets go on sale to members from 11 February, with general on-sale on 25 February.

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