TheProfessionals

Name Gill Robertson

Title Artistic Director

Organisation Catherine Wheels Theatre Company

e: [email protected]

How long in present post? 5 years

What does your organisation do?
Produces theatre for children and young people

What does your job involve?
Working with the producer to oversee all aspects of the strategic, artistic and financial development of the company, creating and developing artistic policy and development, and lobbying for the company and the sector

Who did you used to work for and what did you do?
I was Artistic Director of Visible Fictions Theatre Company and before that I worked as a freelance director, actor and workshop leader.

What do you enjoy most about your present post?
Developing new shows for young people with our regular team of artistic collaborators

What do you find most difficult in your present post?
We are a busy company; in 2004 we will be producing five shows with a full-time staff of two. This amount of work is fantastic but results in a huge workload? more staff please!

What is your career ambition?
To be at the heart of the growth of great theatre for young people and to continually develop the possibilities of what can be produced for young audiences.

Who has influenced your career to date the most?
Professionally, I have been influenced by the many great children?s theatre productions I have seen over the past 12 years. The vibrancy, diversity and imagination of children?s theatre is inspiring.

If you could have done any job, what would it be?
Anything involving singing loudly, lots of money and regular trips to New York.

If you had three wishes for the future of the arts, what would they be?
That children?s theatre would be embraced by all members of the arts community and no longer be viewed as a poor relation of adult theatre;

That theatre would become a central part of everybody?s life;

That new artists were supported and given opportunities to create new work.