Hugh Grant in 1986 and Bob Hoskins and Helen Mirren in 1981 are just some of the acting talent to have graced its stage.
In 2004, long before Spiderman, Andrew Garfield was in Cares, while Maxime Peake appeared more recently in 2015 and the following year Don Warrington swapped Death in Paradise to play King Lear.
To mark its 50th anniversary, some of the costumes worn by those acting greats are on display.
The Mythic Reinvention exhibition, which is free, includes just a small fraction of the theatre’s collection.
There are more than 25,000 costumes and other items kept in its archive and all the outfits for its performances are made in-house.
It aims to provide an exclusive insight into the inner workings of the theatre’s costume department from the artists who created some of the Royal Exchange’s most iconic shows.