The Stage

C4 commits £130,000 to directors training scheme

Published Monday 9 August 2004 at 16:55

Channel 4 has renewed its sponsorship for a theatre director training programme, pledging a total of £130,000 over the next three years.

Every year three trainee directors are placed in one of the UK’s leading theatres as part of the 4 Theatre Directors Scheme. Each participant is given £10,000 to support them throughout the year and receives a further £5,000 at the end of the placement to stage their first production at the same venue. Previous recipients include Trevor Nunn, Adrian Noble and Ken Loach.

C4’s training and development manager Alec McPhedran said: “Channel 4 is genuinely committed to developing talent in the creative industries and our links with the theatre remain as strong as ever. With the assurance of support for at least the next three years, we would now like other sponsors to come forward and ensure this fantastic scheme continues to be around for a long time yet.”

Established in 1960 as the Regional Theatre Young Director Scheme, the project was supported first by Thames Television, before being passed to the ITV Fund. The scheme lost this support in 1991 as a result of the reallocation of ITV contracts and eventually disbanded. It was relaunched in 1993 with the backing of C4 and changed to its current name on its 40th anniversary.

Michael Boyd, a former trainee with the scheme and now artistic director of the RSC, said: “In an arts world crowded with commercial imperatives, this scheme carves out space in which young theatre artists can grow. My traineeship at the Belgrade, Coventry gave me my grounding and confidence as a director.” This year’s trainees are Dominic Leclerc, Rae McKen and Anne Tipton.