The Stage

Traverse’s Dominic Hill to join Glasgow Citizens as artistic director

Published Friday 18 March 2011 at 12:24 by Thom Dibdin

The Glasgow Citizens Theatre has appointed Dominic Hill, currently at the Edinburgh Traverse, as its new artistic director.

Hill will take up the post in October. The announcement heralds a move towards increased prominence of the classics in the theatre’s repertoire. It comes seven months after Jeremy Raison and Guy Hollands stepped down as joint artistic directors of the Citizens as part of a major artistic review of the company.

Chairman of the Citizens’ board, Murray Buchanan, told The Stage that of the applications received, Hill’s was “simultaneously the most ambitious, the most exciting and the most realistic.”

He added: “We don’t have the funding of the Donmar - we have ample money to do what we need to do and Dominic understands intimately the opportunity of working within the Citz.”

Buchanan has been at the front of a drive to reenergise the Citizens theatre since joining its board in 2008. An external report was completed last year into the running of the theatre.

“The headline that emerged from that was the perception that the work that we were producing ourselves wasn’t consistently strong enough,” according to Buchanan. “That forced us to think really hard about what we were doing. It was not the intention of the review, but there was a sense that we had to raise the bar in terms of the quality of the work.”

Hill has a strong track record of work on the classic repertoire, with his production of Peer Gynt at Dundee Rep winning particularly strong accolades, including awards at the 2008 CATS for Best Director and Best Production.

Buchanan confirmed that Hill’s appointment will help the company move towards an increase in classic works. He said: “The direction of travel is definitely towards classic plays - from anywhere - done very well. Not to the exclusion of new writing, but new writing will be used far more sparingly.”

Dominic Hill was appointed artistic director of the Traverse Theatre in July 2007, having previously been joint artistic director at Dundee Rep from 2003. He is currently directing The City Madam by Massinger for the RSC, which will open in Stratford-upon-Avon in May.