A key role within the theatrical life of the College is the Cameron Mackintosh Visiting Professor of Contemporary Theatre. The post is a University professorship attached to St Catherine’s College, with a new chair appointed each year. The professor for the 2022-23 academic year is actor, producer and director Adjoa Andoh.

About the visiting professorship

The Cameron Mackintosh Visiting Professor of Contemporary Theatre is a University position, held for one year by a significant figure in the world of theatre.

The role was established in 1990 following a generous gift from the theatre producer Sir Cameron Mackintosh. The visiting professorship in his name seeks to encourage and promote the study and practice of contemporary theatre at the University.

Since its inception, the position has been held by a very distinguished cohort of theatrical greats – see the full list below. These have included actors, directors, producers and members of creative teams. Over the course of their tenure, each professor works with students from across the University, with events such as the inaugural lecture also open to the public.

The position gives students at Oxford the opportunity to work directly with some of the world’s most inspiring and creative forces in contemporary theatre.

About the current visiting professor, Gregory Doran

Gregory Doran is a world-renowned director who worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company for 35 years, most recently as Artistic Director, a post from which he stepped down in April 2022. Born in 1958, he was brought up in Lancashire before studying English and Drama at Bristol University and training as an actor at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. He began his career at the RSC in the 1980s, first as an actor and later as a director, and in 2012 was appointed the Artistic Director of the RSC.

His credits include stage, television, and film productions, including Hamlet (2009) starring Emeritus Cameron Mackintosh Visiting Professor of Contemporary Theatre Sir Patrick Stewart OBE, King Lear, and Richard III, as well as non-Shakespearean productions including Death of a Salesman, Imperium: Conspirator, Imperium: Dictator, Written on the Heart by David Edgar; the Chinese classic The Orphan of Zhao, The Odyssey, and adaptation of Homer’s epic by Derek Walcott, Ben Jonson’s Sejanus, and the musical of David Walliams’ The Boy in the Dress.

Amongst his accolades are a Laurence Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement of the Year, the Sam Wanamaker Award from Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, and Honorary Doctorates from the University of Huddersfield, the University of Nottingham, the University of Bristol, the University of Warwick, the University of Birmingham, the University of Hull and the University of York. Additionally, charting his personal and professional journey through a detailed account of his experiences either directing or producing each of Shakespeare’s plays in the First Folio, Doran’s memoir, My Shakespeare: A Director’s Journey Through the First Folio, was also published earlier this year by Methuen Drama.

Former holders of the position of Cameron Mackintosh Visiting Professor of Contemporary Theatre have included some of the most well-known figures in theatre, film and television.