London’s National Theatre appoints first female artistic director

The National Theatre has appointed its first female artistic director in the theatre’s 60-year history. Indhu Rubasingham, who has run the Kiln theatre in north London for the past decade, will replace current director Rufus Norris in 2025.

She will become both the first woman and person of colour to take up the post since the theatre was founded by Sir Laurence Olivier in 1963.

Rubasingham said: “It’s a huge honour to be appointed Director of the National Theatre - for me, this is the best job in the world. “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,” she continued.

"Theatre has a transformative power - the ability to bring people together through shared experience and storytelling, and nowhere more so than the National.”

She will take up the role of director designate at the National in spring 2024, before taking over from Norris a year later and becoming joint chief executive alongside Kate Varah, currently the National’s executive director. Rubasingham has directed several plays at the National Theatre, including The Great Wave, Kerry Jackson and The Father and the Assassin.

During her tenure at the Kiln, formerly known as the Tricycle theatre, Rubasingham staged a variety of performances including Zadie Smith’s The Wife of Willesden, an updated version of Chaucher’s The Wife of Bath's Tale.

She also directed the Olivier Award-winning play Red Velvet as well as the highly acclaimed productions The Invisible Hand and Handbagged.

Born in Sheffield and of Sri Lankan heritage, Rubasingham holds a degree in drama from Hull University and has previously held associate director positions at the Gate, the Young Vic and the Birmingham Repertory Theatre. She has also directed radio plays for BBC Radio 4, BBC Radio 3 and the BBC World Service and was awarded an MBE in 2017 for her services to theatre.

Norris, who resigned from the post of artistic director in June, said: “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.

"She has run Kiln Theatre expertly for over a decade and I know this experience will be invaluable as she moves to the NT - a place she knows well, having directed successfully in each of the three theatres."

Before Norris' appointment at the National in 2015, five other men held the role of artistic director: Peter Hall, Richard Eyre, Trevor Nunn, Nicholas Hytner and Sir Laurence Olivier.