Kneehigh’s Emma Rice will succeed Dominic Dromgoole as Artistic Director of Shakespeare’s Globe, taking the helm of the iconic venue from April 2016.
Currently joint Artistic Director of Kneehigh, Rice’s productions for the company have included The Red Shoes, for which she won the UK Theatre Award for Best Director, The Wooden Frock, The Bacchae and Tristan & Yseult, which is currently touring the US.
Elsewhere she has directed the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of Tanika Gupta’s The Empress, Umbrellas Of Cherbourg in the West End and the current UK tour of Rebecca.
Talking about her appointment as Artistic Director of the venue, Rice said: “I am delighted and honoured to be taking over the artistic direction of Shakespeare’s Globe. Open to the elements, and to its audience, this unique and important space demands theatre that brims with passion, joy and humanity. Mindful of the extraordinary artists I follow, I will take custody of this incredible organisation with an open heart, fierce passion and excited mind.”
Dromgoole, who has headed up the Globe since 2006, said of Rice: “This is an excellent appointment, in keeping with the Globe’s traditions of boldness and adventure. Over many years, Emma has created at Kneehigh a body of work that shares the same principles of imagination, populism, wit and passion that have always been central to the Globe. I am sure that Emma will be a great complement to the Globe’s heterodox traditions, and also a major surprise.”
Before Rice takes up the position, Dromgoole will see the Globe through its summer season, which opened last night with Jonathan Munby’s production of The Merchant Of Venice. He will then present the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse’s winter programme, departing once the two-year Globe To Globe tour of Hamlet ends in April 2016.