The Stage

Sweet Charity’s Sheader to replace Talbot at Open Air Theatre, Regent’s Park

Published Tuesday 6 March 2007 at 14:40 by Nuala Calvi

Timothy Sheader will succeed Ian Talbot as artistic director of the Open Air Theatre, Regent’s Park, when he steps down in October after 20 years in the role.

Currently a freelance director, Sheader’s most recent work includes Sweet Charity at Sheffield Crucible, which won the Theatrical Management Association Award for Best Musical, and Hobson’s Choice at the Watermill Theatre, Newbury. He directed Twelfth Night at Regent’s Park in 2005.

Sheader told The Stage that he planned to develop work out of season for indoor venues around the UK, as well as taking productions to other parks and outdoor spaces in the UK and abroad. While the Open Air Theatre has previously had success touring shows such as High Society, creating work specifically designed to premiere elsewhere would mark a new direction.

Sheader said: “It would be foolish to change the structure that works immediately, because we need to maintain audiences and increase them, but once I’ve done my first season I can start asking questions about taking the park in a different direction.

“Hopefully the long term plan will involve looking beyond the season and creating work indoors around the country and pairing the theatre with other parks nationally and internationally. I don’t want to limit it specifically to work created for the park.”

Sheader also said he wanted to expand the company’s educational work and potentially have young people performing their own productions of Shakespeare on the Open Air Theatre’s stage.

“In terms of Shakespeare, I want to create work that is on a level with the Royal Shakespeare Company or the National,” he added. “I shall certainly be directing A Midsummer Night’s Dream, because I’ve never directed it. The theatre gets a lot of flack for doing it so often but I don’t see the problem with that.”

Sheader began his career as a trainee at The Orange Tree Theatre and was an assistant director at the Royal Shakespeare Company for two years. In 2004, he spent a year in New York developing a new musical called Imagine This, which premieres at the Theatre Royal Plymouth this summer.