Gregory Doran steps down

you may well see a done deal-EW taking over and RSC evolve into total community theatre.hope i may be wrong.
i hope for whole new team.....who could....? maybe Morris,Marianne Elliot,Dominic Cooke.....suspect not.....think EW .......

Not surprised given the length of time he has been in the role, his age and having lost Antony last year. Greg is staying on Artistic Director Emeritus until the end of next year and is directing Richard III next week and at least one other production next year.

Taking on the Emeritus role allows Erica to stay on as the interim/acting AD whilst they search for a permanent replacement. How much Greg will be involved in this decision we don't know and whether Erica getting the job is a done deal we don't know.

It will be interesting to see what Greg does when he steps away will he still do a few things for the RSC as it is strange to just give an Emeritus role for 20 odd months but it just maybe allows him to finish his ongoing projects and recognises his position in the company but also allows the new AD to follow their own path. Plus they have Greg there for a while as a great source of advise if they wish to use it.

Antony was a fairly prolific writer and a very talented artist so it would be interesting whether there is unpublished work there Greg would oversee and have published or whether Greg would write his own autobiography and about his years with Antony.

TL would be a better fit for the Orange Tree which is also recruiting a new AD - I think it would be a step up in terms of scale and funding on JST.

On the RSC job, who'd even want it apart from EW ? 

Suggest you apply ! Make it a two horse race. Can’t see anyone else of substance even applying. Simon Godwin maybe ?

If it’s not a director I think they’d be more likely to go for an actor.

None of my Shakespeare productions have had budgets exceeding £20k. So I could do loads of them using RSC funds!

Whoever does take over must put making great theatre ahead of any socio-political point scoring.

Great directors with casts who can speak and understand the texts - we don't need more than that.

Which is why I think someone from a producing background rather than a directing or acting background might be good as an AD. 

i think its hard......whyman has such a hold on delivering all their community projects and diversity......she will be hard to replace for the board-even though a new team is essential.

imagine trying to set up new policies with Ew lurking#

I am very aware of ACE and their corruption of the funding for the arts in England.

It is perfectly possible for major companies to focus on their core values whilst paying lip service to the nonsense that ACE talks about.

We need to reform ACE completely to save companies from this tick box mentality. And to strip away the nepotistic decision making that is at the heart of ACE.

Good point by Jon do you want an artistic programmer or an active director. Some people are better suited to either parts of the role. A producer might be very good at programming and finding original new work but then you'd need directors to bring these visions to life whilst a theatre director may create great productions but might not be so good at the programming/admin side.

If you do still have a deputy then I think that the AD and Deputy roles should be held by people from either side of the fence so you have a director and producer combination but in which roles it doesn't matter.

Greg is helming a play to go on stage this summer and has another planned for nest year as he is doing the Emeritus only until end of next year I don't see this treading on the next AD's toes too much. John Barton was advisory director there for years. I'd take the positive that Greg will be around and if you had someone from a none Shakespeare background they have Greg as a sounding board but he won't always be there.

Greg could have resumed his role but has chosen to leave Erica in situ so he has no current desire to resume AD work. I'd personally be very interested how involved in the recruitment process he may be. I've no idea how Theatrical recruitment works but an interviewing panel of Greg, the Executive Director and Board Chair or at least one Non Exec Board member would make sense to me.

I forget how the interview panel was constituted when Doran was appointed but I recall David Tennant was on it. I’d say it would be very very difficult for someone who’d never directed for the RSC before to get appointed and very easy for them to select a preferred in-house candidate as they always have done in the past.

I've always found it interesting that the Royal Opera House, ENO, the South Bank Centre and Barbican have CEOs/ADs who didn't have experience in those sectors previously. Alex Beard came from the Tate, Stuart Murphy and Elaine Bedell came from Sky and ITV respectively while Will Gompertz was the BBC's Arts Editor, Now I'm not sure if that would work as well with the RSC having someone not from the theatre world run it but it would be a shake up.