'This book gives some of the very best of Shakespeare's twenty-first-century colleagues an opportunity to share insights that can only come from playing him' Nicholas Hytner, from his Foreword

Twelve leading actors take us behind the scenes of landmark Shakespearean productions, each recreating in detail their memorable performance in a major role.

Roger Allam on his Falstaff in both Henry IV plays at Shakespeare's Globe

Eileen Atkins on Viola in two productions of Twelfth Night seventeen years apart

Simon Russell Beale on Cassius in Deborah Warner's modern-dress Julius Caesar

Chiwetel Ejiofor on his Donmar Warehouse Othello, directed by Michael Grandage

Sara Kestelman on Hippolyta and Titania in Peter Brook's iconic white-box Dream

Ian McKellen on one of Shakespeare's most demanding of roles: King Lear

Michael Pennington on stepping in at the eleventh hour as Timon of Athens

Alan Rickman on re-evaluating the melancholic Jaques in As You Like It

Fiona Shaw on Shakespeare's Shrew, Katherine, in Jonathan Miller's production

Patrick Stewart on his Las Vegas-set Shylock, a role he has played many times

Harriet Walter on Imogen in Shakespeare's late romance, Cymbeline, at the RSC

Zoë Wanamaker on her National Theatre Beatrice, directed by Nicholas Hytner

Each actor leads us through the choices they made in rehearsal, and how the character works in performance, shedding new light on some of the most challenging roles in the canon. The result is a series of individual masterclasses that will be invaluable for other actors and directors, as well as students of Shakespeare – and fascinating for audiences of the plays.

'Absorbing and original… Curry's actors are often thinking and talking as that other professional performer, Shakespeare himself, might have done.' TLS on Shakespeare On Stage: Vol. 1