How do you decide what stories an audience should hear? How do you make your theatre stand out in a crowded and intensely competitive marketplace? How do you make your building a home for artistic risk and innovation, while ensuring the books are balanced? It is the artistic director's job to answer all these questions, and many more. Yet, despite the central role that these people play in the modern theatre industry, very little has been written about what they do or how they do it.
In The Art of the Artistic Director, Christopher Haydon (former artistic director of the Gate Theatre, 'London's most relentlessly ambitious theatre' - Time Out) compiles a fascinating set of interviews that get to the heart of what it is to occupy this unique role. He speaks to twenty of the most prominent and successful artistic directors in the US and UK, including: Oskar Eustis (Public Theater, New York), Diane Paulus (American
Repertory Theater, Boston), Rufus Norris (National Theatre, London) and Vicky Featherstone (Royal Court Theatre, London), uncovering the essential skills and abilities that go into making an accomplished artistic director.
The only book of its kind available, The Art of the Artistic Director includes a foreword by Michael Grandage, former artistic director of the Sheffield Crucible and the Donmar Warehouse in London.
Forword by Michael Grandage
Sarah Benson - Soho Rep, London
Andre Bishop - Lincoln Center Theater, New York (formerly Playwrights Horizons, New York)
Oskar Eustis - Public Theatre (Formerly Associate AD at The Mark Taper Forum, LA and AD of Eureka Theatre Company in San Francisco)
Paige Evans - Signature Theatre, New York (formerly LCT3, Lincoln Center New York)
Robert Falls - Goodman Theatre, Chicago (formerly Wisdom Bridge Theatre, Chicago)
Vicky Featherstone - Royal Court (Formerly National Theatre Scotland, Paines Plough)
Sarah Frankcom - Manchester Royal Exchange
Kwame Kwei-Armah - Young Vic, London (formerly Centre Stage, Baltimore)
David Lan - formerly Young Vic, London
Tom Morris - Bristol Old Vic (Formerly BAC and also currently as Associate Director at the NT)
Jim Nicola - New York Theatre Workshop
Rufus Norris - Royal National Theatre, London
Diane Paulus - American Repertory Theatre, Boston
Josie Rourke - Donmar Warehouse (Formerly Bush Theatre)
Indhu Rubasingham - Tricycle Theatre
Howard Shalwitz - Woolly Mammoth, Washington DC
Niegel Smith - Flea Theatre, New York
Kully Thiarai - National Theatre, Wales (formerly Red Ladder Theatre, Leeds and Leicester Haymarket Theatre)
Erica Whyman - Deputy Artistic Director, Royal Shakespeare Company (formerly Southwark Playhouse and Gate Theatre, London)
Madani Younis - Bush Theatre, London (formerly Freedom Studios, Bradford)
