Bristol Old Vic announces plans to appoint artistic director

Published Thursday 7 August 2008 at 12:20 by Alistair Smith

Officials at Bristol Old Vic have unveiled bold new plans that will see the company appoint a new artistic director by the end of the year and reopen early in 2009.

The company and its home the Bristol Theatre Royal have been dark since last summer but new BOV executive chairman Dick Penny has revealed he is confident of having full revenue funding restored within weeks and a new artistic director in place before Christmas.

Speaking to The Stage, Penny explained that he is expecting the Old Vic to have secured funding of more than £1 million a year from Arts Council England by the end of August.

Next month he will begin his hunt for a new leader for the Bristol Theatre Royal, which became home to the London-based Old Vic company in 1946. The venue has been without an artistic director since Simon Reade’s shock departure 15 months ago.

“By the end of this month, I’m confident that we will have confirmation of renewed revenue funding from the arts council,” said Penny. “The city council has already confirmed funding last week [of £274,000 annually].

“With the funding confirmed, we’ll be setting out to recruit a new team. This will include a new management board. That will be chaired, initially, by me as executive chair, with two director posts - one will be artistic director and the other will be called business development director. One director will be focused on the art and the production, and one focused on the business and public-facing activities - sales and front of house, that sort of thing.”

He added that both positions would be “full-time, senior posts and well remunerated” and that teams of staff would also be put in place to support the two directors, including the new position of literary manager, who will oversee BOV’s new writing development programme. This will look to train writers for all types of performance, including theatre, and will be run in conjunction with Aardman Animations, the Oscar-winning creators of Wallace and Gromit.

Penny admitted he did not yet know what type of practitioner would fill the role of artistic director and whether this would be someone with experience of directing or producing.

“I think too often theatres are overly prescriptive or they expect one person to have every skill,” he said. “The artistic director will be the clear leader of the team, but we will then build the team around their skills and talent. I’m an absolute believer you need that range of skills that goes from producer to excellent director, but you don’t necessarily find that in one person. If people want to get in touch with us before we formerly advertise in September, then we’re up for that.”

The venue is to undergo basic building work this autumn, which will cost in excess of £500,000 and allow BOV to move back into the site in spring 2009. This will make the Theatre Royal “usable, but not refurbished”. The full redevelopment project - which includes increasing the venue’s performance spaces from two to five, repairing electrics, improving audience comfort and opening up spaces of the building for commercial use - is now costed at £15 million.

BOV has so far raised £6 million, with another £2 million expected to be granted from ACE. The major refurbishment will not begin until the company has found a temporary home to house it, while the work is ongoing.