The British theatre world sometimes resembles a never-ending game of snakes and ladders. The National Theatre of Scotland has a new artistic director, Jackie Wylie, whose first season is under way. London’s Young Vic, too, is under new management, after Kwame Kwei-Armah took over from longtime boss David Lan. Michelle Terry is about to open her first season at Shakespeare’s Globe, while the newly appointed Nadia Fall has initiated a major shakeup at Theatre Royal, Stratford East. Josie Rourke began 2018 by announcing her departure from the Donmar. Her replacement is expected to be announced later this year – by which time, presumably, someone else will have moved on and the cycle can begin again.
Palace intrigues like these can seem of interest only to the most nerdish of industry watchers. But they profoundly affect the theatre you and I see. For all that the job of artistic director is poorly understood, few people have as much influence over the shape and direction of the art form, or the actors and directors who make work. A talented leader can make a building or company sing; a bad one can drive audiences away, and an organisation into the ground.
But who appoints artistic directors, and how? How does regime change work, behind the scenes? How do you turn a struggling institution around, or (even more daunting) live up to your predecessor’s apparently faultless reputation? And what happens when – one thinks of Emma Rice’s brief, ill-starred tenure at the Globe – pretty much everything seems to go wrong?
Even before the news of an artistic director’s departure is announced, the hunt begins for a successor. The theatre’s board of trustees is usually in charge; these days, as in every other job market, headhunters scope out candidates before an advert even appears.
“Your phone goes,” remembers Rupert Goold, who, before joining London’s Almeida in 2013, ran Headlong touring company. “In fact, everyone’s phone goes; often they’re shopping around, seeing who might be interested. There are a lot of coffees. It’s the one bit of the business when directors are forced to feel like actors: you’re auditioning.”
What made him want to apply to the Almeida? “People talk about it in terms of the career politics, stepping stones and all that, but in my experience it’s more intuitive. You think: ‘Ooh, I’d like to make work here.’”
Such is the level of speculation, directors are sometimes the last to find out, adds Rourke – as was the case when her predecessor at the Donmar, Michael Grandage, announced his departure in 2010. “I was at the Bush at the time, and we were in the middle of a massive rebuilding project. The next thing I knew, there was a piece in a paper – the Guardian, I think – saying I was a candidate for the Donmar. I did a total meerkat. I was covered in brick dust, literally hadn’t even thought of it until that moment. Then I thought, ‘Well, maybe I should give it a go.’”
Once the candidates are lined up, interviews are arranged, usually with the board, often over several rounds. Their substance varies – one organisation might be desperate for a new start, another might be riding high and anxious not to lose momentum – but, says Goold, “at some point you’ll be asked what would be in your first season, which is your opportunity to plant a flag. But it’s a tricky balance: you have to make it appealing, but also deliverable. If you say you’re going to have Meryl Streep, you’d better be bloody sure you can get her.”
Theatre-makers’ diaries are so congested that most producers need to think at least two years ahead, and balance a brain-bending number of variables. For houses that stage new writing, when a script that looked a dead cert in first draft suddenly turns out to need a time-consuming rewrite, the planning grid is even trickier.
Then comes the delicate part: dealing with your predecessor, whose artistic decisions will linger long into your tenure. “You feel like a cuckoo in someone else’s theatre,” admits Goold. “Your opening season might even be programmed by them, but suddenly it’s your responsibility.”
How has he handled those conversations? “It varies. Michael [Attenborough], my predecessor at the Almeida, was very welcoming, but he also had enough experience to know I was going to try and change things. When I took over at Headlong [then the Oxford Stage Company], Dominic Dromgoole left an out-of-date bottle of cassis on my desk and a note saying, ‘I don’t believe in handovers.’ In a way, I respect that.” It’s equally painful from the other side, he adds. “I had a nice lunch with Jeremy Herrin [who took over Headlong], but there were moments when it felt like I was looking at the person who was now looking after my children.”
Wylie describes “magnificent dinners” with both of her predecessors at NTS, Laurie Sansom and Vicky Featherstone; nonetheless she admits that the past can loom large, even in a company only 12 years old. “I made a joke to the team that everyone had to stop talking about Black Watch. Every artistic director has a version of that: the show everyone remembers, and which becomes part of the story of a theatre.”
Rourke remembers Michael Grandage offering a sharper piece of advice: “He said: ‘don’t screw it up.’ I mean, he offered a load of help and was brilliant, but he meant don’t break what he’d built.”
Outlining a vision is one thing; making it happen is quite another. The stereotype of an artistic director may be that of a tyrannical megalomaniac whose every whim must be obeyed – cynics might say that there are still a few of those around – but modern theatres rarely run like that, Wylie says. “Leadership has changed in the last few years. Organisations function best when people are empowered. I’m reliant on their expertise; I have to spend quite a lot of time listening. You have to be very clear about what you want, and the difference you want to make, but you can’t be arrogant.”
Goold agrees: “If you have to be the biggest animal in the zoo, then you’re screwed. You can’t take that attitude. Actually, that’s the great privilege of the job: you have to love producing, being in the conversation.”
But who is that conversation actually with? With the exception of major institutions such as the National Theatre and RSC, most British theatres are small-scale operations, with a handful of core staff responsible for the day-to-day running, plus a pool of volunteers and creatives (actors, directors, technical staff) on short-term contracts. Most are also charities, with all the pressures on salaries and funding that entails; for a theatre with one auditorium, one show that doesn’t sell can put a major hole in the balance sheet.
Poor working relationships in the midst of all this can make change much harder to achieve, suggests Goold, particularly if members of staff are loyal to the previous regime. Then again, you can’t just fire everyone around you. “You have to find a way of replacing things while hanging on to the essence of what you’re meant to be doing. It needs to be the same, but it also needs to be different. That’s the challenge.”
Crucially, you also can’t afford to ignore your most important constituency: the audience. “It’s a glib thing to say, but you’ve got to be honest with yourself about what you intend to achieve, and your audience have to believe you. If you can fill an auditorium, that is the engine room of your economics. Anyone who’s filling a theatre shouldn’t be getting it in the neck.”
Though freelance directing in the UK has numerous challenges – not least of which is getting paid enough to eat – artistic directors are required to display a daunting range of skills, which makes it even more astonishing that most British ADs receive next to no training other than what they learn on the job.
A director will spend only a tiny proportion of their time actually making theatre. The rest of it will be programming, producing, talking to directors, agents, playwrights, schmoozing donors, trying to set creative direction and handling the day-to-day workings of the organisation. Though many modern ADs rely on a close working relationship with a chief executive, who’s responsible for keeping the organisation viable financially, there is still a punishing amount to get through, particularly if you also direct your own work.
“It just doesn’t stop, especially if you’re in rehearsals all day,” says Rourke. “Meetings, fundraising events, receptions, then you need to go to shows, and by the time you’ve done all that it takes over your life. One of the things I’ve realised while doing this is that I’ve not had a cup of coffee with a pal on a weekday for 10 years.”
Goold applauds the steadily improving gender balance in the sector, with more women than ever in charge of organisations, but cautions that we shouldn’t be complacent. “People talk about gender diversity, rightly, but if you’re a parent with young children it’s a huge extra thing, and we shouldn’t only want people who don’t have children running theatres.”
Even if it constantly feels as if you’re getting nothing quite right – that star actor’s been grabbed by a Netflix project, this director is an ogre – that can itself be a virtue, argues Rourke. It’s all about the right mindset. “If you’re not in a continuous state of self-questioning – should we have done that thing, should we have done that other thing differently? – you’re probably not moving forward.”
As well as offering tips on budgets, Rourke’s advice is commendably practical: “Keep some clothes in your desk. You never know when you might need to do a quick Wonder Woman.” How about Goold? “Change is your friend,” he says. “So hit the ground running.”
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