18th March 2021
Five new members have joined the board of Bolton’s Octagon Theatre, which is set to reopen following a £12m redevelopment. The new trustees are Chief Executive of Bolton NHS Foundation Trust, FIONA NODEN (pictured left); Manchester based writer, producer and award-winning actor ESH ALLADI (second left); Chief Executive of George House Trust, DARREN KNIGHT (centre); Chief Operating Officer at...
12th March 2021
British-African contemporary theatre company tiata fahodzi has announced CHINONYEREM ODIMBA as its new Artistic Director and Chief Executive. She is a playwright, screenwriter, poet and director. Her work has been performed at Bristol Old Vic, Kiln Theatre, Hampstead Theatre, Watermill Theatre, and toured across the UK with Eclipse Theatre, Bristol Old Vic, and Hull Truck. She is currently the Writer-in-Residence at Royal Welsh...
AMBER MASSIE-BLOMFIELD has been appointed the new permanent Executive Director of theatre company Complicité. Previously Executive Director at Camden People’s Theatre, she is also a producer and writer. As a freelance arts producer and consultant she has worked for China Plate Theatre, Barbican and Free Word. She replaces Polly Gifford who has been working with the company as Interim Executive Director for the past three years....
The Editor-in-Chief of ELLE UK FARRAH STORR has joined the National Theatre board. She was previously Editor-in-Chief of Cosmopolitan, prior to which she launched and edited Women’s Health magazine. Storr is a board member for the Government’s Social Mobility Commission and is the author of The Discomfort Zone, which looks at how challenge and change can unlock creativity and human potential.
Skylight Circus Arts has announced DAVID ALLEN as its new CEO. He comes from a marketing background and is Founder of marketing and development consultancy SkyBlue, which focusses on helping small organisations and individual practitioners in the creative industries, arts and heritage sectors. Formerly the Head of Brand and Marketing at Abbey Road Studios, Allen spent five years in San Francisco working for SEGA as a Project...
Culture Central in Birmingham has appointed ANTHONY RUCK as its new Assistant Director - Strategy and Policy. He was previously Arts Award Manager in the Children, Young People and Learning team at Arts Council England, prior to which he was Programmes Associate at A New Direction. Currently he is completing a PhD at the University of Warwick as an ESRC Doctoral Researcher in the Department of Sociology & Department of Theatre...
11th March 2021
PROFESSOR HELEN HIGSON has been announced as Chair of Ikon gallery’s board of trustees. Professor of Higher Education Learning and Management at Aston University and Vice Lord-Lieutenant for the West Midlands, she takes over from OLIVER LONGMORE, Corporate Banking Manager at Handelsbanken UK, who is retiring from the role having served as a trustee since 2014, and as Chair since 2018.
Z-arts, the Manchester venue dedicated to children, their families and friends, has appointed three new trustees. FREYA BENNETT-NIELSON (left) is a dance artist based in Tameside, Greater Manchester, and part of the team at Global Grooves; LINDA GREEN (middle) is founder and director of Leading Creative Talent, a training and development company for the arts and media industry; and NAZMA NOOR (...
Music education and talent development charity the Midi Music Company, based in Deptford, South London, has welcomed two industry figures to its board. INDY VIDYALANKARA, founder of Indypendent PR, is currently Head of Communications at Tomorrow’s Warriors, and ROB FITZPATRICK, now a Senior Producer at Spotify, has had a 30 year career in music that has taken him from running a record shop, to making music and...
Artist, curator and academic REBECCA FORTNUM will be the new Head of the School of Fine Art at Glasgow School of Art. Currently Professor of Fine Art and Research Lead in the School of Arts & Humanities at the Royal College of Art, her other academic roles have included University of the Arts London, where she was Reader in Fine Art, and Middlesex University, London where she was Professor of Fine Art.
As an artist she...