Rob Clare trained as an actor at the Central School of Speech and Drama (CSSD), London, and his various degrees from Oxford University include a doctorate in the practical interpretation of Shakespeare. He acted with the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) for three years, including productions of Lear and Cyrano de Bergerace that toured to Europe and the USA. Subsequent work as an actor and/or director includes seasons with the National Theatre (as a Staff Director), The Royal Exchange Theatre Manchester and Compass Theatre (UK national touring). He directed national tours of Amadeus(with Tim Pigott-Smith) and a prisons tour of Comedians(with Rufus Sewell) He has taught and directed in numerous leading UK drama schools and training institutions, including the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, The Guildhall School, Shakespeare's Globe (for Rutgers University) and CSSD, where he established the MA Classical Acting course which he also led for its first three years. As a freelance Shakespeare specialist, in recent years, he has worked regularly with the core company of the RSC, most recently doing special text and verse work on Hamlet, and at the Actors Center in New York. As a visiting director at the National School of Drama, New Delhi, he has directed Hindi productions of A Midsummer Night's Dream, Julius Caesar and Romeo and Juliet. He also works extensively in British prisons, where his work with political prisoners in Northern Ireland was the subject of the BBC TV documentary Act of Faith. When he is not working on Shakespeare, or in prison, he likes to punish himself by competing in triathlons and climbing mountains.