West Yorkshire Playhouse is pleased to announce that Robin Hawkes will join Playhouse Artistic Director James Brining in a new role as Executive Director and Joint Chief Executive of the theatre, creating a new joint leadership team for the Playhouse. The Playhouse is a leading venue in the UK’s theatre scene and together Brining and Hawkes will continue to develop an arresting programme of exceptional performance, innovative artist development programmes and pioneering community engagement projects, rooted in Leeds. Robin joins West Yorkshire Playhouse from his current role as Director of Artistic Administration at the National Theatre.
Artistic Director James Brining comments…
I am delighted that Robin will be joining the team to take up the position of Executive Director. He brings a wealth of experience from an organisation with a world class pedigree. He will help us continue to grow the scale and ambition of our work and our engagement with artists and audiences in the North and further afield.
Robin has been working at the National Theatre for seven years and has been responsible for the coordination of 20+ productions each year across the National’s three venues on the South Bank. His recent producing projects include the transfer of the Public Theater’s Here Lies Love in the newly re-opened Dorfman Theatre, the National Theatre’s 50th Anniversary celebration 50 Years on Stage, and the co-production with Punchdrunk Theatre Company of The Drowned Man: A Hollywood Fable.
Robin has also worked as a Producer for the NT’s production of War Horse, both in the West End and internationally. Prior to the National, he was an administrator at the Independent Theatre Council, an association of small and medium-size theatre companies across the UK. Robin was Chair of the Board of Trustees for The Yard Theatre in Hackney Wick from 2012 to 2015.
Robin said of his new role,
I’m absolutely thrilled to be joining James and the team at West Yorkshire Playhouse, a theatre for which I have such admiration as a centre of artistic excellence and pioneering community engagement. I’m hugely excited by the ambitious reimagining that the Playhouse has started to deliver to audiences, staff and artistic collaborators, as well as to the wider community in and around the city over the past few years. I’m looking forward tremendously to joining James in leading the organisation, as I share the passion he has demonstrated over his first couple of years as Artistic Director for a world class and accessible theatre, which is grounded in the vibrant community and culture of Yorkshire, and works with partners both within the region and further afield to produce great and inspiring work.
I’ve spent seven hugely varied and enjoyable years at the National Theatre, and it’s been particularly exciting in the last year to play a part in developing Tessa Ross and Rufus Norris’s first season. I look forward to bringing skills and experience from my time at the National to my new role at the Playhouse.
Robin will take up this new role at the Playhouse in June, while former Chief Executive Sheena Wrigley joined HOME in Manchester in April and this position will be held for the next few months by Pat Weller on an interim basis.
Sir Rodney Brooke, Chairman of the Playhouse board comments
Our search for an Executive Director to replace Sheena Wrigley attracted an excellent field of candidates, a tribute to the reputation of the theatre under James Brining’s artistic leadership. I am delighted that we have secured the services of an outstanding talent in Robin Hawkes. He will bring with him experience at the highest level of the operation of the National Theatre. His partnership with James Brining promises a glittering future for the Playhouse.