I was honoured to receive an invitation to join the SDUK board in June 2022. Over the past few months, I've been learning about the SDUK board's responsibilities, organisation, and the diverse group of members in the UK, in order to understand how best to...
An inside-out view of being a director Sometimes, I think being a director means there’s two versions of me: a director me and a real me. The director me appears calm, in control, and is always reading the room. She is focused on creating a nurturing environment...
Former Royal Shakespeare Company artistic director Adrian Noble will be in conversation discussing his career, approach to directing Shakespeare and his new book How to Direct Shakespeare. "Know this: by developing and sharpening your skills on a Shakespeare text, you will be preparing yourself for your next...
VIEWS MY OWN What am I going to write about? What is useful? What is sitting in my consciousness, right this minute, which constitutes me championing best practice, and care, for members and those who we work with. … Consider this… (Exit social media.) Or @ least, consider flying away from...
I want you to imagine you are a 24 year old doing your first assistant director job. The director is pretty formidable; perhaps they’re also the artistic director of the building. On the first day, the director read out the Equity safe space policy. But...
Samantha Lane remembers the moment she realised she wanted to work in the performing arts. She was thirteen – or around that age, she says – and a touring show visited her high school. “It was called Too Much Punch For Judy and it was about...
Tentatively peeking over the parapet of the Pandemic, I’m struck by how much has changed. Finances are tighter, priorities have changed, and things feel a lot more fragile than they did two years ago. Is it safe to come out yet? I’m also struck by how...
Careers in the arts do not come much more varied than that of Laila Diallo. The Canadian-born, Bristol-based dancer, choreographer and movement director has worked extensively both on stage and off, both in front of the camera and behind it, both across the UK and...
On March 23rd 2020 - my birthday and the day the country shut down - I sat down to a take away dinner with my housemate. Like so many working in the creative industries our worlds had shrunk to the square footage of our flat,...
For Naomi Alexander, setting up a theatre company was not about having a stage to showcase work, or providing a platform to other artists, or achieving commercial success. When Alexander founded Brighton People’s Theatre in 2015, it was, she says, an attempt to solve a...
Hello from Edinburgh. Having lived and worked in Scotland for over 20 years, I joined the SDUK board because I felt that the perspective of directors living and working here needed to be represented. However, working as a freelance director, as AD of a tiny, independent...
The Directors Charitable Foundation has teamed up with Mind, the mental health charity, and their Mental Health at Work site, to create a new online resource specifically for stage and screen directors. The pages include advice, support and resources, as well as a blog where...
Dr Sita Thomas left her native Wales when she was sixteen to pursue more opportunities to work in theatre and the arts. Fifteen years on, she has returned as artistic director of Cardiff-based company Fio Theatre, and is determined to provide aspiring Welsh theatremakers with...
A brief break from our 'A Sense of Direction' blogs this week, to introduce you to our new General Manager, Tanja Raaste: -- Although I only became a theatre producer after forays into other careers, I now realise that those puppet shows I put on at 10...
When Tom Hescott, outgoing executive director first heard about the founding of a new professional trade organisation for stage directors several years ago, he thought it was a terrible plan. “Yeah, I thought it was a really bad idea,” Hescott laughs. “I didn’t see a need...
Assistant director. Associate director. Resident director. These job titles are familiar to anyone working in the performing arts industry. They have appeared in productions and programmes for decades and provided entry points into the industry for generations of emerging artists. Despite this, though, there is scant...
Five years ago, few people had heard of intimacy co-ordination, or intimacy direction. Ten years ago, the job did not even exist – and when you think about it, says Louise Kempton, that is quite astonishing. “You would never have a fight on stage and not...
When it comes to staging plays, there are four different types of director, says Anthony Clark: the deferential director, the daring director, the deviant director, and the director’s director. Each has their particular passion, and each has their particular professional approach. “Deferential directors will try and...
As a child, Harold Finley played with chess sets. He would position the pieces on the board. He would observe the angles and interactions between them. He would act out stories with them. Looking back, the incoming executive director of SDUK says, it seems obvious...
How do you get a job? In most industries, the answer is obvious. You see a vacancy, you send in an application, you go for an interview, and you cross your fingers. In the performing arts, though, things are rarely that simple: it is usually...
Kane Husbands, artistic director of award-winning physical theatre company ThePappyShow, likes to play. A rehearsal day run by him usually starts with an hour long “check-in”, during which the whole ensemble contributes to a group discussion on a relevant topic. Then, he explains, there is...
[vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="full_width" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern"][vc_column][vc_empty_space][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="full_width" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern"][vc_column][vc_column_text] Kate Waters – AKA Kombat Kate – has had dozens of actors killed. She has had them shot. She has had them stabbed. She has had one drowned in a fish...
[vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="full_width" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern"][vc_column][vc_column_text] As an Artistic Director, you often feel you have to be indestructible. As a person with a certain amount of power, you should hold yourself to a high standard. Just occasionally, though, things get tough, and the pressure...
Since 2017, Wales has been my home, initially working here as an Associate Director within a building, and then afterwards remaining here as a freelancer. Due to this I have an insight into both sides of the process for theatre directors, and as we now...
Hello, Firstly I want to say thank you to all the members for voting me onto the board – and in turn I would like to thank Tom for reaching out and asking me to be co-chair alongside Matthew Dunster. The proposition was too good to...
[vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="full_width" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern"][vc_column][vc_empty_space][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="full_width" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern"][vc_column][vc_column_text]Hello I feel very privileged to be writing to you all as the new co-chair of SDUK, alongside the brilliant Pooja Ghai. Pooja will write and say 'hi' next month. SDUK membership has...
We're thrilled to offer up some festive cheer with this month's SDUK Podcast - a chat with Director Zoe Waterman on all things Panto! [buzzsprout episode='6999469' player='true']...
[vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="full_width" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern"][vc_column][vc_empty_space][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="full_width" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern"][vc_column][vc_column_text]We've just published the second episode of the SDUK Podcast! This episode features Artistic Director of the Orange Tree Theatre, Paul Miller, in conversation with SDUK's Executive Director Thomas Hescott. [buzzsprout episode='6342355'...
[vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="full_width" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern"][vc_column][vc_empty_space][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="full_width" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern"][vc_column][vc_column_text]As theatre makers, our reality was turned upside down in March. The questions we are now grappling with are overwhelming: what can we do to survive the pandemic, keep audiences engaged, artists working...
In October last year, a revival of Arinze Kene’s Little Baby Jesus opened at Orange Tree Theatre to rave reviews. Four stars from Time Out and The Arts Desk. Five stars from The Stage. Five stars from The Guardian. The director showered with such praise...
This week's blog is from SDUK Member Robert Awosusi on the challenges of working as both writer and director. Think about the amount of work you do as a director: formulating the vision, casting, planning rehearsals, liaisons with the creative team, the dramaturgy, those endless, endless strings of emails...
Following the twitter response to our Welsh Director's Survey, here is the full report written by Board Member and Director Simon Harris REPORT FROM THE SDUK WELSH DIRECTORS’ SURVEY – SUMMER 2017 Introduction SDUK thought it would be useful to share with you some of the results taken...
This week's 5 Minute Chat is with Stage Director's New Executive Director Thomas Hescott And on Tuesday May 2nd Thomas will be in conversation with his Agent Dan Uztan from UNited Agents at Century Club. Want to know more about the Director/ Agent Relationship? Want to...
This week's blog is from Greg Eldridge, an Australian director, now based in London, who works primarily in opera and is a member of the SDUK Opera Committee. Greg's experience below is one of the many reasons why Stage Directors UK has taken up the mantle...
This week's blog is from our Wales representative board member, Simon Harris. There was a moment in the SDUK meeting in Cardiff a fortnight ago when a young director spoke about his frustration at feeling like he was “forever emerging.” What was interesting was that four...
This week it is our formidable administrator Liz Holmes, who keeps us all organised, engaged and simply makes the stuff we need happen, happen. From your Administrator: There’s the parapet. There’s my big old ginger head peeping out above it. Saying “Hiiiiii, I know I’m part of the problem!” For you...