WOLF HALL & BRINGING UP THE BODIES Included in Royal Shakespeare Company's Winter Season

RSC Artistic Director, Gregory Doran, and Executive Director, Catherine Mallyon, make their first announcement as leaders of the RSC, outlining plans for the Company's Winter 2013 season and their ambitions for the Company. The Winter Season is the first drawn up by Gregory, following a summer of shows programmed by his predecessor, Michael Boyd.

Erica Whyman takes up her role as Deputy Artistic Director, following critical acclaim for her most recent productions at Soho Theatre and Northern Stage, and seven years as Artistic Director and Chief Executive at Northern Stage. She was recently awarded an OBE in the New Year's Honours list. The new role, created by Gregory, has special responsibility for leading the revitalisation of The Other Place in Stratford as an experimental studio and home for new work, as well as playing an active part in forging new artistic collaborations and directing productions.

The Winter 2013 season includes the return of David Tennant (now also an RSC Board member) who will play the title role in Shakespeare's Richard II, directed in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre (RST) by Gregory Doran. This is the first production in a new cycle of Shakespeare History plays that Gregory will direct over the coming seasons. The collaboration between David and Gregory follows on from the hugely successful production of Hamlet in 2008, which was also filmed for BBC television by Illuminations, and they will be joined by Oliver Ford Davies who also appeared in that production. Richard II will transfer to the Barbican Theatre in December after its run in Stratford.

Ella Hickson gives a fresh new perspective on a much loved JM Barrie children's classic with her new adaptation of Wendy & Peter Pan. Jonathan Munby, who was last at the RSC working with Gregory Doran on The Canterbury Tales, will direct and Colin Richmond is the designer. This production continues the RSC's tradition of family shows after last winter's The Mouse and his Child, 2011's The Heart of Robin Hood by David Farr and 2010's Matilda The Musical, all of which played to great audience response and critical acclaim in the RST and the Courtyard Theatre.

Richard II plays from 10 Oct - 16 Nov 2013 and Wendy & Peter Pan plays from 10 Dec 2013 - 2 Mar 2014 in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. Richard II transfers to the Barbican Theatre to play from 9 Dec 2013 - 25 Jan 2014.

A much-anticipated double bill of Hilary Mantel's Man Booker prize-winning novels, Wolf Hall and Bring up the Bodies, receives a world premiere in the Swan Theatre. The books are adapted for the first time for the stage in two parts by Mike Poulton, commissioned by Playful Productions, and directed by Jeremy Herrin. These two plays paint the compelling portrait of the political rise to power of Thomas Cromwell in the Tudor Court and will play in repertoire from December.

Wolf Hall won the Man Booker in 2009, and Bring up the Bodies won in 2012, making Mantel the first woman ever to have received the award twice. She achieved another first recently, when Bring up the Bodies also won the Costa Novel Award, the first time the same novel has won both this and the Man Booker.

Jeremy Herrin is an Associate Director at the Royal Court, where he is currently directing Polly Stenham's new play No Quarter. His National Theatre production of James Graham's political play This House is set to transfer to the Olivier Theatre in February this year after a sell-out run in the Cottesloe last year.

Wolf Hall plays from 11 Dec 2013 - 29 Mar 2014 and Bring up the Bodies plays from 19 Dec 2013 - 29 Mar 2014.

The Winter's Tale, directed by Lucy Bailey, tours the UK after its run in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon, from 13 Mar - 20 Apr 2013, playing in Milton Keynes, York, Nottingham, Edinburgh, Hull and Stoke-on-Trent.

The RSC's Summer Season of Royal Shakespeare Theatre shows; Hamlet (directed by David Farr), As You Like It (directed by Maria Aberg) and All's Well That Ends Well (directed by Nancy Meckler), will transfer to Newcastle Theatre Royal and play from 18 Oct - 19 Nov. Further details will be announced by the Theatre Royal in early February when priority booking opens.

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