From 1977 to 1990 Caird directed over 20 productions for the RSC, including Shakespeare's Twelfth Night[4] with Zoë Wanamaker, John Thaw, Daniel Massey and Emrys James, Romeo and Juliet with Daniel Day-Lewis, Amanda Root and Roger Allam, Midsummer Night's Dream with John Carlisle, Clare Higgins and Richard McCabe, Merchant of Venice, As You Like It and Antony and Cleopatra.
At the RSC's Swan Theatre he directed Ben Jonson's comedies Every Man in His Humour with Simon Russell Beale, Henry Goodman and Pete Postlethwaite and The New Inn with John Carlisle and Fiona Shaw, the first night of this play being the second-ever professional performance since it first appeared in 1629.
Caird's other productions at the RSC included classic works by Farquhar, Shaw, Strindberg, Gorky and Brecht and world premières of plays by Peter Flannery, Jonathan Gems, Mary O'Malley, John Berger, Nella Bielski, Charles Wood and Richard Nelson.
In 2000, he again directed Simon Russell Beale, this time in Hamlet, a production that toured the UK and Europe, going to Elsinore, Stockholm and Belgrade, before transferring to the Brooklyn Academy (BAM) in New York.
Caird's last production at the National Theatre was the world première of Humble Boy by Charlotte Jones, with Diana Rigg and Simon Russell Beale.
Caird also directed two new Shakespeare productions in 2015: a Japanese language production of Twelfth Night in Tokyo for the Toho Company, opening in March at the Nissay Theatre – and Love's Labour's Lost for the Stratford Festival in Canada with designs by Patrick Clark, lighting by Michael Walton and music by Josh Schmidt, opening in August and playing in repertoire for the rest of the season.
His first production in Sweden was As You Like It (Som ni vill ha det) for Stadsteatern (Stockholm City Theatre) in 1984, with Stina Ekblad and Mats Bergman.
Caird's production of Shakespeare's The Tempest (Stormen) opened at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in October 2010 with Orjan Ramberg, Stina Ekblad and Jonas Karlsson.
In February 2014 Caird worked for the first time in the Royal Dramatic Theatre's intimate stage, Målarsalen, where he directed Hjalmar Söderberg's classic Swedish drama Gertrud with Anna Björk, Jonas Malmsjö, Otto Hargne, Magnus Ehrner, and Mia Benson.
Caird's Japanese productions started with Les Misérables, which opened at the Imperial Theatre (Teikoku Gekijo) in 1987 and has been running in repertoire with other works at the same location ever since, as well as touring extensively throughout Japan.
He returned to Tokyo in the summer of 2012 to direct the Japanese première of his musical Daddy Long Legs at Theatre Crié, translated by Maoko Imai, designed by David Farley, starring Maaya Sakamoto and Yoshio Inoue.
He returned to Tokyo in the summer of 2012 to direct the Japanese première of his musical Daddy Long Legs at Theatre Crié, translated by Maoko Imai, designed by David Farley, starring Maaya Sakamoto and Yoshio Inoue.
In spring 2015, Caird directed a new production of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night for the Toho Company at the Nissay Theatre in Tokyo, starring Kei Otozuki, Tomoko Nakajima, Satoshi Hashimoto and Songha.
The play was translated by Kazuko Matsuoka, with song lyrics by Maoko Imai, designs by the late Johan Engels, lighting by Ryuichi Nakagawa and music by John Cameron.
In 2017 Caird directed Hamlet at Geigeki Theatre in Tokyo with Seiyo Uchino in the title role, Jun Kunimura as Claudius, Yuko Asano as Gertrude and Shihori Kanjiya as Ophelia.
Caird returned to WNO in the autumn of 2011 to direct a new production of Mozart's Don Giovanni, conducted by Lothar Koenigs with designs by John Napier and lighting by David Hersey.
In October 2012 Caird mounted a new production of Puccini's La Bohème for Houston Grand Opera, conducted by Evan Rogister with designs by David Farley and lighting by Michael Clark.
In May 2013 Caird's production of Tosca opened in Los Angeles at LA Opera, conducted by Plácido Domingo with Sondra Radvanovsky in the title role, Marco Berti as Cavaradossi and Lado Ataneli as Scarpia.
In November 2013 Caird directed a new production of Wagner's Parsifal at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, conducted by Sir Andrew Davis with sets by Johan Engels.
The Chicago production was conducted by Dmitri Jurowski with Tatiana Serjan in the title role, Brian Jagde as Cavaradossi and Evgeny Nikitin as Scarpia.
In San Francsisco, Carlo Montanaro conducted Bohème with Erika Grimaldi and Julie Adams sharing the role of Mimi, Ellie Dehn as Musetta, Arturo Chacón-Cruz as Rodolfo and Audun Iversen as Marcello.
The same production of Bohème will be revived at Houston Grand Opera in the autumn of 2018 with James Lowe conducting, Nicole Heaston as Mimi, Ivan Magri as Rodolfo, Michael Sumuel as Marcello and Pureum Jo as Musetta.
In February 2018, Caird’s production of Mozart's Don Giovanni was revived at Welsh National Opera, where it was staged by Caroline Chaney, with James Southall conducting.
Daddy Long Legs won three LA Ovation Awards and transferred to London in the autumn of 2012 where it played at the newly opened St James Theatre.
Caird's television work includes his own adaptation of Shakespeare's plays Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2 for the BBC's performance series in 1995, starring David Calder, Ronald Pickup, Rufus Sewell, Jonathan Firth, Elizabeth Spriggs, Simon McBurney, Jane Horrocks and Paul Eddington amongst others.
Caird has devised and staged two celebrations for WWF, the Worldwide Fund for Nature: the Religion and Inter-faith Ceremony at Assisi in 1986 and Gifts for Living Planet at Bakhtapur, Nepal in 2000.
In 2005 Caird wrote and directed Twin Spirits, a dramatised concert based on the music and letters of Robert and Clara Schumann, in aid of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden's educational outreach programme.
The performers for these venues have included Derek Jacobi, Joshua Bell, Natasha Paremski, Natalie Clein, Jonathan Pryce, Jeremy Denk and John Lithgow.
In 2016 the third leg of the journey was completed with a visit to Kampala, Uganda where the young performers played an outdoor gala at the Ndere Centre in support of Ashinaga’s African Initiative.
In 2016 Caird co-curated and directed, with Tom Morris and Emily Blacksell, the Bristol Old Vic Theatre’s 250th Anniversary Gala - with a star-studded cast of BOV alumni, including Stephanie Cole, Pippa Haywood, Toby Jones, Michael Morpurgo, Sian Phillips, Tim Pigott-Smith, Caroline Quentin and Timothy West.