Announcing our Artistic and Creative Associates
22 January 2019
The associate artists will work closely with artistic director Adam Penford to help shape the artistic vision of Nottingham Playhouse, contributing to artistic planning and inspiring new ideas to be brought to Nottingham.
Adam said: “I am thoroughly looking forward to working with Amanda, James, Matthew and Sarah. We always strive to create work which reflects our society at Nottingham Playhouse. With that in mind, we aim for an equal gender split in the actors and theatre-makers we employ across each season so it was a natural extension of that policy to end up with an equal gender split across the associates too. All four Associates have a working-class influence in their backgrounds and their work.
“All four associate artists bring their own set of unique skills, experiences and interests with them, and will act as a sounding board for me in everyday tasks, including reading scripts and watching play readings.”
Sarah is a local spoken word artist and emerging playwright, and is a member of Amplify, our artist development programme. Amanda, also from Nottingham, is the most performed female playwright in the country.
James, who grew up in Mansfield, is one of the UK’s leading writers through his prolific stage and screen plays, and Matthew is one of the UK’s most exciting theatre directors, directing a string of well-received and innovative productions over the last few years, including Shebeen, performed at Nottingham Playhouse in June last year, and One Night In Miami… which will be performed at the Playhouse in June this year.
The last 12 months have been a huge success for us, after being shortlisted in The Stage Awards 2019 for Regional Theatre of the year and becoming one of the first regional theatres to be chosen by National Theatre Live for the highly acclaimed production of The Madness of George III.
We have also attracted well-known actors in the last year, such as Mark Gatiss, Adrian Scarborough, Rebecca Trehearn, Karl Collins and Debra Gillett. Adam Penford and Stephanie Sirr, CEO of the Nottingham Playhouse, also received recognition on The Stage 100 2019 list of the most influential figures in UK theatre.
Two further creative associate appointments have also been made: theatre company and Nottingham based all-female comedy collective Major Labia and local writer and actor Ben Norris.
