The Stage

Northern exposure - Daniel Evans at Sheffield

Published Friday 19 February 2010 at 14:45 by Alistair Smith

Daniel Evans, Sheffield Theatres’ new artistic director, is gearing up for the Crucible’s reopening following a £15 million redevelopment. He talks to Alistair Smith about the challenges of running a venue for the first time and why he wants to programme for Sheffield audiences first

Daniel Evans, Olivier Award-winning actor and Sheffield Theatres’ new artistic director, is a bundle of nervous energy.

No wonder he’s a little edgy - he’s talking to me in a break from rehearsals for his new production of Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People, starring Antony Sher. It’s the show which will reopen the Sheffield Crucible following a £15 million redevelopment. It’s the show which will kick off his own artistic tenure of the building. It also happens to be the biggest production Evans has ever directed - in terms of budget, cast and profile.

“When I think about it too much it is nerve-wracking, I’ll admit,” he explains in his excited, musical, Welsh voice, “but I just felt it was the honourable thing to do - to direct the opening show.

“I just thought that I had to. It might turn out to be foolish, who knows, but I thought I’ve put myself on the line here in putting myself up for the job and, now I’ve got the job, I should put my money where my mouth is.”

Better known as a performer than a director, Evans was something of a surprise choice when he was appointed in 2009. He was also the latest in a long line of actor-managers who have led the Sheffield venue. He succeeds Samuel West, who left in not altogether amicable circumstances when the theatre shut down for the refurbishment in 2007 and who had himself replaced Michael Grandage - another performer turned creative. Colin George, the founder of the Crucible, was also both an actor and director.

With the building work now complete and the first season’s programme in place, Evans is clearly itching to get started. What he might lack in experience, he undoubtedly makes up for with his obvious relish for and excitement about the job at hand.

As a teenager growing up in south Wales, Evans spent most weekends on minibus journeys to and from Stratford-upon-Avon and London, where he would visit the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre. It was then that he first took an interest in the idea of programming a theatre.

“Sometimes I’d go for a weekend and see entire seasons of work,” he explains. “Oddly enough, one of the seasons I saw up in Stratford had Tony [Antony Sher] in shows like Singer and Tamburlaine. The thought of seeing an ensemble of actors in a whole season of work was really thrilling. You could go to different shows at the matinee and in the evening, and see the same actor play different parts. That I think is always very satisfying for an audience.

“I remember going back to see things multiple times - I saw Singer three times - and thinking how wonderful it would be to imprint a tone on a season or on a place, or a building. It’s something that I’ve wanted to do since I was a teenager.”

Years later, after graduating from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Evans found himself landing his first job at the RSC and, since then, he has worked on stage for many of the UK’s leading building-based companies.

“You work in some great buildings and some not so great buildings,” he says, “and I don’t mean the bricks and mortar, although that is an element, but you can tell how things are run very quickly as an actor - you can tell whether the staff really care about a place. That always struck me at somewhere like the National - when Richard Eyre was there - that everyone on that fifth floor really did care and I’m sure that is true there today.

“I worked here at the Crucible twice as an actor. I did Michael Grandage’s The Tempest and Anna Mackmin’s Cloud Nine, and I had great experiences both times. Any actor will tell you that working on the Crucible stage is wonderful. It’s an actor’s stage.”

So, when the job at Sheffield came up, it seemed natural to Evans to go for it. Especially as it coincided with a period in his life when he needed a change.

“I’d just been to Broadway with Sunday in the Park With George and I had quite a difficult time,” he explains. “I’d been playing the part - off and on - for nearly three years and I found New York quite tricky. We got there during awards season and there are so many awards and so many luncheons that you have to go to, and there was an unashamed attitude towards money - the more money the show makes, the better the show is. I found that quite hard and I came home and I didn’t want to work for a little while.

“I didn’t feel like I wanted to act. I directed a few plays and I knew I wanted to continue to direct, but I was in a real funk. Then I started running - I ran the marathon last year. That started to shift things and then a friend drew my attention to the advert for the Sheffield job. It was like a light bulb.”

Somewhat to his own surprise - this was the first artistic director post he had ever applied for - Evans landed the job and, over the last nine months, he has been busy putting a programme in place for the new Crucible and finding shows for its sister receiving venue the Lyceum.

As for the reopening season in the Crucible - which includes a 400-seat studio, as well as the 1,000-seat principal auditorium - Evans says he has tried to put together a varied “diet” of work that “speaks to the city and the region, now”.

“For example, with the opening play, An Enemy of the People, there is so much that feels relevant. The biggest thing is this idea of how public money is spent. It’s just pre the election and the thing about Sheffield is that it’s a really political city. It was known for a little while as the Socialist Republic of Sheffield and it was a staunch old Labour ground. Just recently it has shifted to Lib Dem. Some of the issues that are debated in public life in Sheffield will be reflected on stage.”

Elsewhere in the season, the city’s football obsession is reflected in Roy Williams’ play There’s Only One Wayne Matthews, which, as well as playing in the studio, will visit Sheffield’s two football grounds, Bramall Lane and Hillsborough. Meanwhile, Evans hopes that Sisters - the first show in the Studio - will resonate with Sheffield’s Asian population. Even Laura Wade’s adaptation of Alice in Wonderland - in the main space later in the year - will have a Sheffield flavour, with the action being transposed to the Yorkshire city.

Evans also has a few plans up his sleeve for beyond the opening season. One is a production of Hamlet, starring John Simm and directed by Paul Miller. He’s being a little more coy about the others.

“We’re doing a Shakespeare - Hamlet - and we’ll be doing a musical at Christmas. I know what it is, but I can’t say yet. Then in the spring we’ll be doing a season that celebrates the work of a living British writer, which will hopefully be in all three of our spaces at once. It will concentrate on being a retrospective. There will be play readings and we’re hoping to team up with the cinema so they can show some of the writer’s films…” Again he’s reluctant to give up the precise identity.

“The following year is our 40th anniversary year, so I’m already thinking about that. That will hopefully involve inviting back a whole group of people who have been involved in the history of the building.”

Evans is now setting out to write himself into the history of the Crucible and he’s very aware of the responsibility that the venue’s illustrious history places on his shoulders.

“I want to ensure that the work that is on the stages really continues, consolidates and advances the tradition that Sheffield has of producing these exceptionally well-acted, well-designed, well-directed plays, and that’s across the board in both spaces in this building.”

And he has one very specific aim.

“There are a couple of postcodes in the city from which only a very small number of people come to us. That’s something we’ve got to crack.”