The play centers on Agnes Hathaway, portrayed by Kemi-Bo Jacobs, and her relationship with William Shakespeare, played by Rory Alexander. Adapted by award-winning playwright Lolita Chakrabarti and directed by Erica Whyman, the production explores the personal tragedy behind one of Shakespeare's most famous works through the eyes of the family who lived it.
Hamnet at Chicago Shakespeare Theater
Set in Warwickshire in 1582, the story follows Agnes, a natural healer, as she meets Latin tutor William Shakespeare. Their connection leads to marriage and family, including three children. The narrative turns devastating when their 11-year-old son Hamnet dies from the plague, leaving both parents to grapple with profound grief. From this tragedy emerges something unexpected, the creation of one of the most celebrated plays in Western literature.The original production shattered box office records at the Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon in 2023, playing to sold-out audiences. When it transferred to London's West End, it achieved the biggest box office advance in the Garrick Theatre's history and earned critical acclaim, with The Mail on Sunday calling it "pure theatre gold" and the Evening Standard describing it as "elegant and beguiling."
"We're delighted to welcome the Royal Shakespeare Company back to Chicago for this moving and illuminating production of Hamnet," shared CST Artistic Director Edward Hall. "The play gives a fascinating window into Shakespeare's life from a new perspective that imagines in such vivid detail what his family might have been like—a valuable new contribution to understanding the family and the writer behind the plays we know and love. And it's wonderful to be welcoming playwright Lolita Chakrabarti back to CST, whose writing so sensitively brings to life the characters in Maggie O'Farrell's beautiful novel."
RSC Co-Artistic Directors Daniel Evans and Tamara Harvey shared, "We are delighted to share casting for the first US tour of Hamnet. It's wonderful to be coming back in 2026 with Lolita Chakrabarti's beautiful adaptation of Maggie O'Farrell's best-selling novel, which offers a compelling new perspective on Shakespeare through the eyes of Agnes Hathaway and their children. We can't wait to share this intimate and moving story with US audiences."
Playwright Lolita Chakrabarti added, "Hamnet brings to life the Shakespeare family—William, his sister and their parents, Agnes, his wife, and their three children. You will see why William went to London and discovered the theater, how his family lived without him and how the profound loss of a child gave us one of the most important plays in the western world. Hamnet is a heartwarming and heartbreaking exploration of family, loss, and the stories we tell ourselves in order to survive."
Director Erica Whyman said, "I am delighted to be revisiting this extraordinary story for US audiences, and to be making this production with a stellar line-up of performers. Kemi-Bo Jacobs and Rory Alexander are bringing Agnes and William alive on the stage with a luminous intelligence and a profound and shocking understanding of the love and loss that shaped their lives. They are joined by a wonderful company bringing a wealth of experience and spirited invention to Lolita's searing adaptation. The play explores Agnes's remarkable spiritual gifts and her relationship with both the natural world and the future with an imaginative theatricality, and audiences should expect beautiful music, movement and sound design on Tom Piper's stunning set. This is, at its heart, an intimate story of family which finds eternal expression on the stage—to see it in the theatre is to bear witness to the astonishing resilience of the human spirit."
The source material has achieved remarkable success worldwide, selling over 1.5 million copies. O'Farrell's novel earned the 2020 Women's Prize for Fiction, the UK's most prestigious annual book award celebrating fiction written by women, and was named both Waterstones Book of the Year and winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2020. The book also became the number one Sunday Times Bestseller in 2021 and received shortlist recognition for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction and British Book Awards Fiction Book of the Year.
Following its Chicago run, the production travels to Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, DC from March 17 to April 12, 2026, and then to American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco from April 22 to May 24, 2026.