Olivier award-winning RSC associate director Gregory Doran directs The Taming of the Shrew, Shakespeare's hilarious comedy and perhaps the most famous play written about the battle of the sexes.

Running in tandem with Shrew will be Fletcher's remarkable, irreverent and hugely entertaining response to it, The Tamer Tamed (or The Woman's Prize).

The Taming of the Shrew was first produced in the 1590s and The Tamer Tamed in 1611, around twenty years later. It is thought that John Fletcher wrote it as a tactic for attracting Shakespeare's attention. It worked, and they went on to collaborate on three plays - Henry VIII, Cardenio and The Two Noble Kinsmen, and Fletcher was soon to take over from Shakespeare as principal King's company dramatist.

There is no record of the pairing of the two full plays since they were performed in a single day at court by Shakespeare's old company, the King's Men in November 1633.

So audiences in 2003 will have the opportunity to see both plays performed by the same company and in their entirety, for the first time in 370 years, when both productions begin their run in the RSC's Stratford Summer Festival repertoire.

Gregory Doran recently directed Fletcher's The Island Princess, as part of the RSC's Jacobean Season of rarely performed Jacobean and Elizabethan plays, a season which he devised and produced.

They played to sell-out houses in the Swan Theatre in 2002, and are currently playing in repertoire at the Gielgud theatre in London. Doran and the company received an Olivier Award for Special Achievement for reviving these gems.

The cast for The Taming of the Shrew is led by Alexandra Gilbreath as Kate. Her last RSC performance was as Rosalind in As You Like It and Juliet in Romeo and Juliet in 2000. Since then she has appeared in the popular TV series The Bill (as serial killer Pat Kitson) and Monarch of the Glen. Playing opposite her as Petruchio is Jasper Britton in his first RSC role since the 1993/4 season. Jasper has recently played the title role in Macbeth at the Globe theatre as well as starring in Japes and Bedroom Farce, both in the West End. Recent TV includes Heartbeat, Murder in Mind and The Cry.

For The Tamer Tamed, Jasper Britton retains his role as Petruchio, and Alexandra Gilbreath takes the role of Maria, Petruchio's second wife. The tables are turned as Maria locks him out of the house on his wedding night and further humiliates him until he is thoroughly 'tamed'.

The cast for The Taming of the Shrew also includes: Esther Ruth Elliot (Widow), Eve Myles (Bianca), Beth Vyse (Lady), Tom Anderson (Haberdasher), Paul Chahidi (Hortensio), Ian Gelder (Baptista), Christopher Godwin (Gremio), Christopher Harvey (Tailor), Daniel Hawksford (Lucentio), Rory Kinnear (Tranio), John Lightbody (Curtis), Oliver Maltman (Peter), Bill Nash (Nathanial), Keith Osborn (Pedant), David Peart (Vincentio), Nathan Rimell (Joseph), Nicolas Tennant (Grumio), Simon Trinder (Biondello).

The productions are both designed by Stephen Brimson Lewis, who delighted audiences with his Tuscan backdrop in Doran's Much Ado About Nothing in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in 2002. He will be setting both Shrew and The Tamer Tamed in Elizabethan times.

There are other key members of the creative team who will be working on both productions.