team
Josie Rourke
Artistic Director
Josie trained with directors Peter Gill, Michael Grandage, Nicholas Hytner, Phyllida Lloyd and Sam Mendes. Before coming to the Bush she worked for five years as a freelance director and was the Associate Director of Sheffield Theatres and Trainee Associate Director at the Royal Court.
At the Royal Court she directed CRAZYBLACKMUTHFUCKIN'SELF by Deobia Oparei and LOYAL WOMEN by Gary Mitchell. At Sheffield, she directed WORLD MUSIC and THE UNTHINKABLE by Steve Waters; MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING, THE LONG AND THE SHORT AND THE TALL by Willis Hall and KICK FOR TOUCH by Peter Gill. She was the tour director of THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES by Eve Ensler. At the Young Vic, she directed MY DAD'S A BIRDMAN by David Almond. For the Royal Shakespeare Company she directed BELIEVE WHAT YOU WILL and KING JOHN (RSC Complete Works). She has directed the 24HOUR PLAYS at The Old Vic Theatre and in New York. For the Donmar Warehouse Josie has directed FRAME 312 by Keith Reddin, WORLD MUSIC by Steve Waters and THE CRYPTOGRAM by David Mamet. For The Bush, Josie has directed HOW TO CURSE by Ian McHugh, TINDERBOX by Lucy Kirkwood and 2,000 FEET AWAY by Anthony Weigh. Recent work outside The Bush includes TWELFTH NIGHT for Chicago Shakespeare Company.
Josie was born and brought up in Salford. Since taking over the job at The Bush she has moved from East to West London, swapping Hackney for The Goldhawk Road. In Shepherds Bush, Josie loves Pacific Net Cafe because they know how she takes her coffee without asking. Patio Restaurant is her top tip for a great place to relax and the best Polish food in West London (see if you can get Eva to sing you some opera). She recommends the Thai supermarket on Shepherds Bush Road, where the fresh curry pace is the stuff of legend, there's also a brilliant Polish supermarket round the corner on the Uxbridge Road - it's worth taking home the great rye bread. Josie has now found the best place to get her Vespa serviced - by side of Shepherds Bush Market tube - and she is slowly learning the joys of the 94 Bus.
Angela Bond
Executive Director
Angela Bond is responsible for ensuring that the Bush's extensive programme of activity can happen. She manages the business planning and contracting, sets and monitors budgets and oversees the producing of all of the Bush's work.
Angela is originally from Lancashire and has previously worked with companies producing new writing, light entertainment, children's, aerial, dance and multi-discipline theatre. Along with her Bush work, Angela also sits on the Board for Scarabeus Theatre Company and consults for arts charities.
Anthea Williams
Associate Director, bushfutures
Anthea Williams is the Associate Director at the Bush in charge of bushfutures, the company's outreach and development arm. She develops Playwrights through productions and creates links with emerging practitioners and the community.
While at the Bush she has directed TURF by Simon Vinnicombe and TWO CIGARETTES by Jack Thorne and developed and directed 50 WAYS TO LEAVE YOUR LOVER and 50 WAYS TO LEAVE YOUR LOVER AT CHRISTMAS by Leah Chillery, Ben Ellis, Stacey Gregg, Lucy Kirkwood, Morgan Lloyd Malcolm and Ben Schiffer.
Anthea is currently working on suddenlossofdignity.com with Zawe Ashton, James Graham, Joel Horwood, Morgan Lloyd Malcolm and Michelle Terry. She is also developing the new Playwrights' website BushGreen with Make Mode and Buffalo.
As we are situated right in the heart of Shepherds Bush it's only right that we have an Antipodean in our midst and Anthea (or Inthya) fills the role nicely as a New Zealander by birth and an Australian by inclination. Prior to working at the Bush she lived in Auckland and was the Co-Artistic Director of SmackBang Theatre Company and the Producer of Massive Company, where she produced new plays and national and international tours. Anthea trained as a director at the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne and the University of New South Wales in Sydney. She has worked for various companies down under.
Stephanie Hui
Marketing Manager
Stephanie is the Marketing Manager at the Bush, spending much of her day speaking and writing about the Bush and working with the creative and box office teams in making sure as many people as possible come and enjoy our shows.
Having started her career in law, Stephanie is well versed in the act of balancing demand and output, having a million tasks on the go and liaising with all sorts of interesting people - all of which comes in handy at somewhere as busy as the marketing office at the Bush. She has previously worked at The Agency, a London talent agency, as part of the legal & business affairs team where she worked on numerous theatre deals including for productions at the National Theatre and Tricycle Theatre. Stephanie also completed an internship in the communications department at the Royal Court prior to joining the Bush in March 2009, where she worked on THE YOUNG WRITERS FESTIVAL, the OFF THE WALL season and the WALLACE SHAWN season.
Nathan Curry
Associate Director
Nathan joined The Bush as a Creative Associate in 2008 and directed Bunfonidae by Bryony Lavery as part of the Broken Space Season. He became one of the Associate Directors in February 2010.
Nathan is also the Artistic Director of the award winning ensemble tangled feet.
For tangled feet Nathan has directed: Home, IConfess, Game? Emily?s Kitchen, Lost Property and Catching Dust, tangled feet also made an aerial spectacular for nabokov Arts Club.
Other Directing Credits include: As You Were, (Edinburgh Fringe Festival), One Mile Away by Kat Joyce, (promenade performance in Elephant and Castle), Fixer by Lydia Adetunji (HighTide Festival), Romeo and Juliet, (New Wimbledon Studio), Weapons of Happiness by Howard Brenton (Finborough Theatre), Ya Get Me? By Ashmeed Sohoye (for the Old Vic Education Department). 20,000 by Shireen Mula, In My Country by Justin Butcher and The Actual House by Nicholas Wright (all Nabokov Present Tense at Southwark Playhouse). Nathan has recently developed Movieplex: an interactive outdoor experience with The National Theatre Studio and Nutkhut Theatre Company.
He was the Assistant Director on A Moon for the Misbegotten on Broadway NYC and at The Old Vic and was Staff Director at The National Theatre on The Life of Galileo, both assisting Howard Davies.
Nathan trained at Middlesex University and subsequently has received training from The National Theatre Studio Directors Course, Katie Mitchell Directors Course, The Royal Shakespeare Company (with Cicely Berry) and The Stary Theatre, Krakow.
Caroline Dyott
Producer
From licensing venues and writing contracts to drawing up budgets and negotiating with agents, Caroline's job is varied, to say the least.
She arrived at The Bush in November 2007, fresh from interning at The Old Vic in the New Voices department and working on the 24 HOUR PLAYS GALA, and she has also since co-produced the 24 HOUR PLAYS : OLD VIC NEW VOICES. For The Bush, Caroline produced the sell out 50 WAYS TO LEAVE YOUR LOVER at Latitude Festival and on tour. and 2009's summer production suddenlossofdignity.com.
On other Bush productions she works with Angela on all aspects of producing, which basically involves getting stuck in with whatever needs doing, whether that be wallpapering the foyer, acting as Field Marshal for the move into new offices above the theatre or persuading the various publicans of W12 to let us use their function rooms as free rehearsal space. Which is the only reason she has them on speed dial. Honest.
Tara Wilkinson
Producer
Tara can often be found up a tree in Shepherds Bush Green reading some of the 1,000 scripts that are received by The Bush each year. Another portion of her time is spent calling and emailing writers, in order to reduce the paper trail and save the trees that she so loves sitting in. She runs Bush Literary with the help of her Creative Associates, and hosts regular meetings to discuss the plays submitted to The Bush.
Tara also assists Josie and James in programming and casting decisions and tries to be the welcoming face of The Bush to all artists and visiting companies.
This 'little night monkey' can be also seen in many a theatre four or five nights a week, surveying the landscape of British Theatre on behalf of The Bush.
Tara trained down the road at LAMDA as a director, and has freelanced as assistant director, director and producer for various companies such as nabokov and Liquid Theatre, as well as continuing to produce independently in the outback of the Fringe scene.
Clare Moss
Box Office Manager & Front of House Manager
Clare is the face of the Bush. She runs the Box Office and anyone who's ever been to the theatre or booked tickets on the phone will have spoken to Clare. If you haven't seen Clare, then you would have met one of our lovely box office assistants: Lee Simpson, Ava Leman Morgan, Tasha Bloor, Alex Hern, Amanda Ramasawmy and Kate McGregor.
Clare has also worked for a film festival; for a music festival; as a special needs teaching assistant and as an athletics coach. She was a drama student for most of her educational years, so she brings her people skills to a job she is passionate about.
Clare often has her plentiful supply of carrots and humous raided by the rest of the staff.
Bethany Ann McDonald
Development Officer
Bethany's job is to seek out funding which enables the Bush to grow and offer more opportunities to emerging theatre artists.
Hailing from New York City, Bethany worked as a professional scenic artist before moving to London in 2005 to study directing at LAMDA. From there, she realized that encouraging people to support the arts is not only a vitally important part of being an artist, it is also a noble mission. For that reason, she decided to go back to school once more and in 2008, received her MA in Arts Policy & Management with distinction from Birkbeck College.
Her dissertation, 'The Artist as Arts Manager; an exploration of artistic leadership and management approach in theatre' is both a study of reconciling tensions between business and creative imperatives and a search to define the role of artistic director. It includes interviews with David Lan of the Young Vic, Alex Hassell & Tim Evans of The Factory, and Oskar Eustis of The Joseph Papp Public Theatre in New York City.
Bethany loves theatre and believes that because it is a threshold for healthy debate, it has the power to influence social change and increase global awareness - therefore, she is excited about her role at the Bush and confident that with the standard of work here, she'll be able to raise thousands of pounds!
Anthony Newton
Production Manager
Originally from Scarborough, Anthony began his theatre career, aged 16, at the Stephen Joseph Theatre. He later trained at Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh and upon graduating worked as a lighting designer in the live events industry. Since then he has worked in technical theatre with many companies and has toured extensively in the UK and abroad, with work taking him as far away as Malaysia, China and Venezuela as well as throughout Europe.
Anthony was technical director of the National Student Drama Festival for 3 years and still plays a part in the event as a technical advisor to the festival. He has worked in various capacities at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival for the last 9 years; most recently as production manager for Universal Arts? venues and productions. He was also recently a judge for the PLASA Innovation Awards, a scheme to reward innovation in entertainment technology.
Anthony spent 6 months in Beijing learning Mandarin at Peking University in the run up to the Beijing Olympics. Though he now has little opportunity to use this skill he is keen to return to China some time with a new project. He played the drums in his school jazz orchestra, another skill he infrequently exercises, though with rumours of several Bush staff being secret musicians, who knows?
Sophie Coke-Steel
Acting Marketing Manager
Sophie is the Acting Marketing at the Bush, covering for the lovely Stephanie whilst she takes maternity leave.
Sophie begun her marketing career promoting the books of some of her favourite novelists in the busy fiction division of HarperCollins Publishers.
Before starting at the Bush, Sophie spent a year in Australia enjoying Sydney's theatre (and beach) scene whilst working as the Marketing Coordinator for the Sydney Writers' Festival and managing the marketing campaign for 2009 New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards.
Chris Haydon
Associate Artist - 2011 project
Christopher studied at Cambridge University and trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama, the National Theatre Studio and with Cicely Berry at the RSC. In 2007 he was the recipient of both the inaugural Chichester Festival Theatre Heller Fellowship and the Channel Four Theatre Director's Bursary to spend a year on attachment at the Salisbury Playhouse. He is the Associate Director of On Theatre.
As a director, theatre includes Monsters (Arcola Theatre May 2009), A Number (Salisbury Playhouse): Grace (British Council/On Theatre, Theatre Du Poche, Brussels, Belgium): Notes from Underground (Arcola Theatre).
As assitant director, theatre includes Macbeth starring Patrick Stewart (Chichester Festival Theatre and West End), Twelfth Night (Chichester Festival Theatre), Othello, Touched, What the Butler Saw, Robin Hood (Salisbury Playhouse), On Religion (Soho Theatre/On Theatre), The Desire Tree (Oxford Playhouse/Tumanishvili Theatre, Tbilisi, Georgia) The Found Man (Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh).
He is also an award winning journalist and has written for The Financial Times, The Scotsman, Prospect Magazine, and The Guardian (online). He is co-editor of the books Conversations on Religion and Conversations on Truth both published by Continuum. He is currently researching a book about identity for the Wellcome Trust.
Having grown up just over the river in Barnes, Shepherd's Bush feels almost like home. He is particularly excited to be working at the Bush as it was seeing Disco Pigs here in 1997 that made him decide that he wanted to work in the theatre. If you want to find him, he is usually eating a baked potato in the Pacific net cafe around lunchtime.