ELIZABETH DEBICKI TO STAR AS RICHARD II AS RSC UNVEILS MAJOR 2027 SEASON
Elizabeth Debicki will take on one of Shakespeare’s most iconic roles as Richard II as the Royal Shakespeare Company unveils an ambitious Spring/Summer 2027 season of Shakespeare, literary adaptations and world premieres in Stratford-upon-Avon.
Photo Credit: Elizabeth Debicki, Richard II, RSC
Best known for her award-winning portrayal of Diana, Princess of Wales in The Crown, Debicki will make her Royal Shakespeare Company debut in the title role of Richard II, running at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre from 10 April to 22 May 2027. Directed by Daniel Raggett, whose previous RSC productions include Macbeth and Edward II, the production will see Debicki return to the stage following her recent appearance opposite Ewan McGregor in My Master Builder in London's West End.
The casting is one of the highlights of a major new season from the RSC, bringing together four Shakespeare plays alongside new theatrical adaptations of celebrated novels by Virginia Woolf and Susanna Clarke.
Also opening the season at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre is Coriolanus, starring Bergerac and Being Human actor Damien Molony. Running from 6 February to 20 March, Elizabeth Freestone's contemporary reimagining of Shakespeare's political tragedy will explore populism, social instability and the battle for increasingly scarce resources, placing the centuries-old play firmly within the concerns of the modern world.
Photo Credit: Coriolanus, RSC
Following Richard II in the spring, Shakespeare's most famous love story returns to the stage for the summer. Joanna Bowman will direct Romeo and Juliet from 6 July to 28 August, exploring the intensity and danger of obsessive first love against the backdrop of the ancient feud between the Montagues and Capulets.
Meanwhile, The Comedy of Errors comes to The Other Place from 16 July to 4 September as part of the RSC's First Encounters with Shakespeare programme. Directed by Francesca Goodridge, the condensed 80-minute production will later tour schools and theatres across England.
Away from Shakespeare, two major literary works will receive their world stage premieres at the Swan Theatre. Virginia Woolf's groundbreaking Mrs Dalloway has been newly adapted by playwright Zoe Cooper and will be directed by RSC Co-Artistic Director Tamara Harvey. Running from 16 April to 12 June, the production returns audiences to Westminster in 1923, following Clarissa Dalloway as she prepares for a party while First World War veteran Septimus Warren Smith struggles with the psychological aftermath of conflict. The production promises a fresh exploration of Woolf's themes of memory, love, identity and human connection, bringing the novel's famously complex interior world onto the stage.
Photo Credit: Mrs Dalloway, RSC
Another highlight comes in July with the first stage adaptation of Susanna Clarke's award-winning novel Piranesi. Adapted by Sami Ibrahim and directed by Ned Bennett, the production will transform the Swan Theatre into an immersive world of shadow and illusion. The story follows Piranesi, who inhabits an apparently endless House filled with vast halls, statues and rising tides. As mysterious messages begin appearing around him, he starts to question everything he believes about his strange and beautiful world. Piranesi runs from 3 July to 21 August 2027.
Photo Credit: Piranesi, RSC
Also arriving at the Swan Theatre is Liz Duffy Adams' Born With Teeth, which imagines the relationship between a young William Shakespeare and fellow playwright Christopher Marlowe.
Following its acclaimed West End run, the two-hander will play from 12 February to 3 April, directed by RSC Co-Artistic Director Daniel Evans. Across three secret meetings in the back room of a pub, Shakespeare and Marlowe find themselves locked in a battle of ambition, politics and creativity as they discover what they might achieve together, if they don't destroy one another first.
Together, the productions form a wide-ranging 2027 season that moves from some of Shakespeare's greatest plays to two of the most celebrated novels of the past century, combining established stars with a new generation of directors, writers and theatre-makers.
RSC Co-Artistic Directors Daniel Evans and Tamara Harvey describe the season as one that explores how "inner conflict and external influences collide to shape us", while demonstrating how Shakespeare continues to speak to contemporary audiences.
The Royal Shakespeare Company's Spring/Summer 2027 season runs across the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Swan Theatre and The Other Place in Stratford-upon-Avon. Public booking for the newly announced productions opens on 21 October 2026.