Past productions

The first actor to play the title role in Othello was Richard Burbage, who along with William Shakespeare, was a leading member of the King’s Men theatre company. After the Restoration and the re-opening of the theatres, Margaret Hughes became the first recorded woman to perform on the English stage, when she played Desdemona on 8 December 1660.

Not until the 1830s did a black actor play the title role when Ira Aldridge toured Europe to great acclaim. Nearly 100 years later, the black singer, activist and actor Paul Robeson was a memorable Othello, a role he repeated at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1959.