Top UK theatre names Rubasingham as 1st woman director

LONDON (AFP): British director Indhu Rubasingham has been appointed to lead the prestigious National Theatre, the charity said Wednesday, the first woman to take up the role.

Rubasingham, who was born in Sheffield to Sri-Lankan Tamil parents in 1970, will start work there in the spring of 2025.

“For me, this is the best job in the world,” Rubasingham said in a statement from the theatre, which was founded by actor Laurence Olivier in 1963.

“The National has played an important part in my life –- from tentative steps as a teenage theatregoer, to later as a theatre-maker, and to have the opportunity to play a role in its history is an incredible privilege and responsibility.”

Rubasingham, who has been artistic director of Kiln Theatre in Kilburn, north London, since 2012, will take over from theatre and film director Rufus Norris who has held the role since 2015.

While at the Kiln, Rubasingham won acclaim for her inaugural production for the multi-award-winning play “Red Velvet” by Lolita Chakrabarti.

Her production of the play “Handbagged” by Moira Buffini won an Olivier Award — one of drama’s most prestigious accolades — for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre in 2014.

In 2021 she directed best-selling author Zadie Smith’s critically acclaimed debut play “The Wife of Willesden” at the theatre in 2021. The show went on to be the theatre’s highest-ever grossing show.

“Indhu is an exceptional artist who I respect and admire hugely, and I am so pleased that she will become the next director when I step down in 2025,” Norris said.

Britain’s Guardian newspaper lauded Rubasingham’s appointment.

“This role is not, and should not, be about identity,” the newspaper wrote.

“But Rubasingham will be the first woman in the job, and the first women of colour, at that. Of course that is significant.”

The Royal National Theatre, based on the south bank of the Thames river near Waterloo station, hosted its first production — “Hamlet” — in October 1963 with Peter O’Toole in the main role.

Olivier, the theatre’s first director, assembled a team of some of the leading directors of the time, including John Dexter and William Gaskill.

The actors he employed included the Michael Redgrave, Cyril Cusack, Maggie Smith, Billie Whitelaw and Michael Gambon.

Leading critic Kenneth Tynan was appointed to select the theatre’s repertoire of plays.