The Stage

Kavanaugh joins Birmingham Rep as artistic director

Published Tuesday 18 April 2006 at 10:05

Birmingham Repertory Theatre has appointed Rachel Kavanaugh as the first female artistic director in the venue’s 93-year history.

She replaces Jonathan Church who, after five years at the Rep, has moved on to become artistic director at the Chichester Festival Theatre. Kavanaugh has worked with Birmingham since 2001 and was associate director prior to her recent appointment.

While at the Rep she has worked on the Wizard of Oz, the theatre’s most successful family Christmas show to date and the David Hare Trilogy, which she co-directed with Jonathan Church in 2003.

“I am very excited to be the new artistic director of such a vibrant theatre and look forward to building on Jonathan Church’s success here,” she commented.

“While I was there [before] I got to know the staff very well and the building and the city - and of course the audiences. I am going into an environment that I know. The Rep was the very first theatre I ever worked at as a general assistant. That was before I even went to university, when Kenneth Branagh was here.”

Her credits elsewhere include Arcadia at the Bristol Old Vic, The Merry Wives of Windsor and Alice in Wonderland for the Royal Shakespeare Company, Guys and Dolls at the Sheffield Crucible and several Shakespeare plays at the Open Air Theatre in Regent’s Park. She has also directed at the Chichester Festival Theatre, the Greenwich Theatre and the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond.

Her latest production of Hilda by French playwright Marie NDiaye opens this week at Hampstead Theatre and she is currently directing The Taming of The Shrew, which opens at the end of May at the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre.

Ian Squires, chairman of the board at the Rep said: “We are thrilled that Rachel is joining us as artistic director. She is one of this country’s outstanding and brightest directors and her passion for theatre will ensure that our audiences will continue to enjoy work of the highest quality.”