20 Jun A Sense of Direction – Chelsea Walker

Born in 1989, Chelsea Walker grew up in a small village in the Cotswolds. She fell in love with theatre as a child and even directed two plays while still at high school. It was a student trip to perform at the Edinburgh Fringe after her first year at the University of Oxford, though, that convinced her to pursue directing professionally, instead of acting.

In 2016, Walker was runner-up for the JMK Award and subsequently staged a production of Clare McIntyre’s Low Level Panic at Richmond’s Orange Tree Theatre in 2017. In the same year, she won The RTST Sir Peter Hall Director Award and toured a revival of Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire. Those two shows established Walker as a boldly original director, and she has since worked at the Sherman Theatre, Theatr Clwyd, the Sheffield Crucible and the Hampstead Theatre, where she is currently in rehearsals for the premiere of Christopher Hampton’s Visit From An Unknown Woman.

How did you become a director?

My parents took me to see quite a bit of theatre when I was young. I remember going to see shows at the RSC and we came to London every now and again, too. I also had the most incredible drama teacher at school who let me direct two plays.

After my first year at university, I thought I wanted to be an actor and was in a play at the Edinburgh Fringe. I felt completely disconnected from it, though, and from the style of it, while simultaneously seeing all this amazing, unique, and interesting work elsewhere.

I went back to university for my second year and directed my first play, a version of A Clockwork Orange that we took to the Edinburgh Fringe. My first professional production was of Isley Lynn’s Lean at the Tristan Bates Theatre in 2013.

Who or what was the biggest help along the way?

Winning the RTST Sir Peter Hall Director Award. Before that, I thought I wanted to direct new plays. That award not only gave me the chance to stage a classic play – A Streetcar Named Desire – but it championed my vision for that play, too.

What work are you most proud of?

I directed a version of Hedda Gabler at Cardiff’s Sherman Theatre in 2019. I was given the space and support to make it in exactly the way I wanted to. All the creative team and the company were in the room the whole time.

What work are you least proud of?

I have learned to be proud of all of them in really different ways. I’ve never made a piece of theatre I didn’t believe in. I’ve never directed a script I wasn’t excited about.

Is there a show that you really want to stage?

There are many. I’m currently writing my first adaptation. It is of an Ibsen play. I’m not going to say which but I am desperate to do it. I have an idea for The Seagull that I am dying to do, too.

What is your financial situation?

Precarious. In my experience, it is impossible to be a freelance director without working other jobs unless you have a West End hit. Even though I am currently in quite a fortunate position within the industry, I still work at drama schools and tutor kids.

What do you enjoy most about directing?

The synergy when everyone is in the room together on the same page. It creates this flow, this complicity, this magic.

What are your frustrations with directing?

The pay. That is my biggest frustration.

What fills you with dread about the future of theatre?

The bizarre idea that as budgets get tighter, the work should get safer, more conservative, less risky and less experimental. And the closing off of access routes into the industry. Those two things feed into one another.

What gives you hope for the future of theatre?

The shows that counter that idea. I recently saw Machinal at the Old Vic and The Cherry Orchard at the Donmar Warehouse. They were both so brilliant and so bold, and they were popular and commercially successful as a result.

What are you working on at the moment?

I’m directing Visit From An Unknown Woman at the Hampstead Theatre, which opens later this month and runs until late July. It is a new adaptation of Stefan Zweig’s short story Letter From An Unknown Woman by Christopher Hampton. It is a beautiful adaptation that looks at what it was like for Zweig to be a celebrated Jewish writer during the time that the Nazis were rising to power. It’s about obsession and perception and memory. It sits somewhere between a memory play and a thriller and a tragic romance.

Written by: Fergus Morgan, SDUK’s resident blogger.