Blanche McIntyre to direct All’s Well That Ends Well at Royal Shakespeare Theatre this summer

All’s Well That Ends Well is to run at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre this summer.

The Royal Shakespeare Company has announced that Blanche McIntyre’s contemporary take on William Shakespeare’s enduring dark comedy will run from Tuesday 16 August to Saturday 8 October 2022.

The piece will play in repertoire with Gregory Doran’s production of Richard III starring Arthur Hughes.

Blanche McIntyre’s directing credits span Shakespeare’s Globe, the National Theatre, Chichester Festival Theatre, Donmar Warehouse, Almeida Theatre, Hampstead Theatre, Headlong Theatre, Nuffield Theatre, English Touring Theatre, Manchester Royal Exchange, among many others. Blanche’s previous RSC productions include Titus Andronicus (2017) and The Two Noble Kinsmen (2016).

All’s Well That Ends Well is Designed by Robert Innes Hopkins, who previously collaborated with Blanche McIntyre on the RSC’s Titus Andronicus (2017).

Casting is to be announced.

Blanche said: “I am so excited to have the chance to direct Shakespeare’s most modern comedy at the RSC. All’s Well that Ends Well, as full of grief and nostalgia as romance and adventure, with its story of sexual politics, class prejudice and generation gaps, would always have felt contemporary.

“But the fantasy relationships and fake identities in the play make it a perfect match for our anxious, idealistic, lonely, social-media-addicted age.

“I’m thrilled to be working again with designer Robert Innes Hopkins for our second RSC collaboration. We can promise a fleet footed, inventive, contemporary, colourful production, with one foot in real life and one in the online world. I look forward very much to bringing it to audiences, and I hope they will have a thought provoking as well as entertaining evening.”

Blanche’s production of All’s Well That Ends Well and Gregory Doran’s Richard III mark the final productions, in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, of the Company’s ten-year pledge to produce all of Shakespeare’s collected plays for the stage.

Screen adaptations of both Richard III and All’s Well That Ends Well will be captured, completing a unique collection of Shakespeare on stage, produced by one Company across one decade.