16+ Gregory Doran Quotes On Education

Gregory Doran is a British theatre director and Chief Associate Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company. He has directed many productions for the Royal Shakespeare Company, including Hamlet, Macbeth, The Tempest, and King Lear. He was appointed Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2012. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Gregory Doran on love, life, leadership.

Sometimes the parallels that are brought in can make the play seem less relevant; you can deny a play's application to the universal by making it too specific. Sometimes having a modern context does make things easier to grasp; sometimes, you go, "Why have they got swords?" "Why didn't Juliet just text Romeo? Why did she bother posting a letter? Why was the Milan post service so bad?" It throws up irrelevant questions that don't help. — Gregory Doran

I think William Shakespeare's like a passport through your life: as a kid hearing about a play with fairies or witches or ghosts, you get excited by that possibility. Then later on you become interested in the psychology or the politics or the beauty of the language. You grow up with the plays. King Lear is one that I don't feel grown up enough to do yet. — Gregory Doran

Sometimes it can get overburdened with nuance - the actors find all sorts of different spins on the lines that can lose simplicity and directness. They all become fond of their extra stresses and the audience are going, "Just give me the line simply, what did you mean?" You have to ward against that. — Gregory Doran

I was doing an interview with Charlie Rose and he said, "What do you think about Margaret Thatcher?" - and I had not heard she had died at this point - and he said, "Is there any kind of Shakespearian overtone here?" I said, "Well, actually, Julius Caesar, because ever if a politician was stabbed in the back, it was Mrs. Thatcher, by all her conspiratorial cabinet, which really did just stab her in the back." It's a rather interesting resonance. — Gregory Doran

I went to a Jesuit school and they did a William Shakespeare play every year. I got to know Shakespeare as parts I wanted to play. I missed out on playing Ophelia - it was an all-boys school. The younger boys used to play the girls, I played Lady Anne in Richard III and Lady Macbeth, then Richard II and Malvolio. I just became a complete Shakespeare nut, really. — Gregory Doran

There's a wonderful author named Can Themba, who said that Africa extends a fraternal handshake to Shakespeare. That William Shakespeare would have recognized Elizabethan England more readily in Africa today than in England today. — Gregory Doran

What's depressing, in a way, thinking of Margaret Thatcher legacy - and she was no doubt great in many ways - but the arts in the UK are still having to justify that it is a profitable business rather than a frivolity. It's one of the greatest UK exports, one of the reasons people come to the UK, and yet we're still having to justify our existence in terms of funding. — Gregory Doran

I have seen productions of Julius Caesar that set it in a modern, Western context and it just looks as though they're getting rid of a particularly cantankerous chairman of the board rather than the great leader of the world. — Gregory Doran

King Lear by William Shakespeare frightens me. I've never done King Lear, I guess partially because my father dwindled into dementia in his last years and King Lear is such an accurate portrayal of a father figure suffering from dementia - the play was almost intolerable for me. — Gregory Doran

I don't think Vladimir Putin goes to the theater enough to even deign to think there was any criticism intended. We were invited by Moscow. Maybe they wanted a particular production of Julius Caesar in order to remind Putin that he was vulnerable, but that wasn't our intention. — Gregory Doran

By the time I came of age and, indeed, Margaret Thatcher became prime minister, I had seen the entire William Shakespeare canon, which, in those days, you were quite able to do. Now, it's a much harder thing. Mrs. Thatcher was really axing public subsidy for the arts. — Gregory Doran

I always feel emotionally engaged in productions. If I ever get to the point where I don't feel emotionally engaged, maybe I should stop. You have to make each play an event. Whether that's star leading actors or the concept behind the production. — Gregory Doran

At the assassination of Caesar when Cassius says, "How many ages hence shall this our lofty scene be acted over in states unborn and accents yet unknown!" And you kind of went, "Never was there a truer word spoken." — Gregory Doran

I guess, is we are not saying, "Look, William Shakespeare's written a critique of modern Africa." What we're saying is that we've shifted the metaphor to make it more immediate. — Gregory Doran

Really what Brutus and Cassius do by assassinating Caesar, is open up a vacuum into which much more ruthless people run. Julius Caesar is an amazingly contemporary, resonant, politically astute play. — Gregory Doran

The list of potential candidates for Julius Caesar is quite large. You could go, "Well, he's a Caesar." Idi Amin, or Bokassa in the Central African Empire, or in Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe coming to power. They have all, at some point in their lives, been candidates for a casting as Julius Caesar. — Gregory Doran

Life Lessons by Gregory Doran

1. Gregory Doran's work emphasizes the importance of creating meaningful and thought-provoking stories that explore the complexities of human relationships.
2. He is an advocate for diversity and representation in the theatre, and his productions often feature strong female characters and actors of color.
3. His work also highlights the power of collaboration, as he often works with other creatives to bring his vision to life.