The play's popularity has waned since the mid-twentieth century, although Charles Laughton played Henry at Sadler's Wells Theatre in 1933 and Margaret Webster directed it as the inaugural production of her American Repertory Company on Broadway in 1946 with Walter Hampden as Wolsey and Eva Le Gallienne as Katherine. John Gielgud played Wolsey, Harry Andrews the king and Edith Evans Katharine at Stratford in 1959.
Another notable production was the first at the reconstructed Shakespeare's Globe from 15 May to 21 August 2010, as part of the theatre's first season of Shakespeare's history plays, with cannon fire at the same point as the 1613 production and a cast including Dominic Rowan as Henry, Miranda Raison as Anne, Ian McNeice as Wolsey and Kate Duchêne as Katherine (with Raison also playing Anne in the same season's Anne Boleyn).[31] It was staged at the Folger Shakespeare Theatre (Washington, D.C.) from 12 October until 28 November 2010; this production added a puppeter-narrator, played by Louis Butelli, named for Henry VIII's jester, Will Sommers, as well as the character of Mary I, played by Megan Steigerwald. A remount of that production also played at Alabama Shakespeare Festival in 2012.
In 2019 the play was done in repertory at the Studio Theatre at Canada's Stratford Festival. The production was filmed by Cineplex for broadcast in theatres;[32] it has also aired on CBC in Canada.[33]
