Co-Artistic Directors Daniel Evans and Tamara Harvey today announce further details of the RSC’s 2026-27 season line-up, which sees three-time Olivier Award-winning actress Sharon D Clarke take up the titular role in a radical reimagining of Shakespeare’s Othello directed by Monique Touko, and Rufus Norris direct for the company for the first time with the world premiere of Brock’s Mill by RSC Writer-in-Residence Stewart Pringle.

The company also mounts its first commission for early years audiences with the world stage premiere of The Bear and the Piano: an enchanting new co-production with Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, developed for ages 3+ and based on the best-selling children’s book by David Litchfield.

Audiences across England, from Nottingham to Newcastle, will be able to experience Blanche McIntyre’s sell-out production of The Merry Wives of Windsor in their local theatre in Spring 2028, as part of a major four-year touring programme opening at Blackpool’s Grand Theatre with further casting and on-sale details to be announced.

Priority booking for Members and Supporters for all new productions opens from 10am on Friday 3 July with public booking opening from 10am on Thursday 16 July. For further information on how to become an RSC Member or Supporter, visit the website.

Also announced today, Tony, Grammy and Olivier Award-winning composer, orchestrator and music supervisor Martin Lowe will take up the role of Music Associate with responsibility for music across all RSC productions.

He will be joined by Paula Stephens as Head of Voice. Paula joins the previously announced Patsy Rodenburg (who took up the honorary role of RSC Emeritus Director of Voice in October last year) and will be responsible for delivering the RSC’s work in classical voice training and performance.

Other newly announced roles include the appointment of Emily Burns and Ryan Day, who join Elizabeth Freestone as Associate Directors of the RSC. 

New shows at a glance:

Based on the beloved book by David Litchfield, The Bear and the Piano is a heart-warming story in which a bear’s chance encounter with a piano deep in the forest takes him on an incredible journey to the big city to share his musical gifts with the world. Adapted by Toby Olié and Tom Brady and suitable for ages three and over, this brand-new co-production with Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre is brought to life through a captivating wordless fusion of puppetry and music and is the first production for early-years audiences to be commissioned under Daniel Evans and Tamara Harvey’s tenure. The production will make its world premiere in The Other Place from 11 December 2026 – 10 January 2027.

Marking her RSC debut in 2027, three-time Olivier Award-winning actor Sharon D Clarke takes up the titular role of Othello in Shakespeare’s tragedy of shattered passion, revenge and psychological warfare, playing from 13 February - 3 April 2027 in the Swan Theatre. Set in a climate threatened future in which a black lesbian holds a seat of power, this movement and music-infused Othello by Monique Touko (Marie and Rosetta, Jaja's African Hair Braiding) re-imagines Shakespeare’s 400-year-old story through the lens of misogynoir, as an unsanctioned marriage perilously crosses boundaries of race, sex and status, allowing jealousy, suspicion and malign intent to close in.

Looking ahead to spring, multi award-winning director Rufus Norris joins the RSC for the first time in his esteemed career, to direct the world premiere of Brock’s Mill by RSC Writer-in-Residence Stewart Pringle, opening in The Other Place from 26 March - 8 May 2027. This acutely observed family drama follows the story of Bernard, who - forty years on from the heyday of his professional career as a stop-motion animator for Bluebell Studios - finds himself confronted with the reality of a past far removed from what he imagined. A homage to the craft of stop-motion film making and an exploration of the corrosive power of nostalgia, with animation by award-winning stop-motion animator Astrid Goldsmith, Brock’s Mill investigates the ownership of memory and the importance of being present in one's own life.

Looking ahead to 2028, Blanche McIntyre’s “immaculate” and “utterly joyous” production of William Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor will visit the RSC’s Associate Regional Theatres across England in the spring, following its premiere in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon as part of Daniel Evans and Tamara Harvey’s inaugural season. The tour forms part of an embedded programme of audience development, learning and engagement that celebrates its 20th anniversary this year.

These latest productions join the previously announced Game of Thrones: The Mad King, the first-ever stage play arising from George R. R. Martin’s epic fantasy series, adapted by Duncan Macmillan and directed by Dominic Cooke; Shakespeare’s As You Like It, with Co-Artistic Director Daniel Evans directing an all-male cast led by Jonathan Groff; and the RSC and Told By an Idiot’s uproarious take on Alexandre Dumas’ The Three Musketeers directed by Paul Hunter; all in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. In the Swan Theatre, Middlemarch by Nina Raine from the novel by George Eliot, is directed by Jeremy Herrin. And in The Other Place, Phyllida Lloyd directs Dame Harriet Walter and an all-female company in a timely revival of her trailblazing 2012 Donmar Warehouse Julius Caesar.