Alan Stacey To Step Down As Executive Director Of Headlong

Alan Stacey has today announced that he will be stepping down as Executive Director of Headlong in March 2022 after six years with the company. During his tenure Stacey has helped bring some of Headlong's most critically acclaimed work to over 900,000 people in theatres across the UK. Stacey has also championed some of the country's finest young directors, providing the likes of Amy Hodge, John Haidar, Sam Pritchard, Holly Race Roughan and Tinuke Craig with a mid-scale touring platform to create their most ambitious work.

During Stacey's tenure Headlong created the company's first outreach programme, Headlong Futures followed by Headlong Origins, an annual programme that nurtures emerging artists and theatre makers from all across the UK, outside London.

Over the past five years Headlong has created work that responds to events that have significantly altered the UK cultural, social and political landscape. Last year, Stacey, Herrin and Race Roughan created Unprecedented with the BBC, a series of critically acclaimed digital plays responding to the global coronavirus crisis written, directed and performed by some of the UK's finest artists including Charlene James, April De Angelis, Prasanna Puwanarajah, Matilda Ibini, Josh Azouz, Gemma Arterton, Lennie James, Alison Steadman, Meera Syal, Saida Ahmed, Paterson Joseph and Saoirse-Monica Jackson.

Under Stacey, Headlong has continued to deliver gender parity across its new commissions and since 2019 has ensured that one in every four commissions is written by an ethnically diverse artist. Also in 2019 Stacey and the team created Justice working groups to implement structural change within the organisation. Forthcoming announcements will outline the company's commitments on the environment, gender, disability, class and LGBTQI+ communities.

Recruitment for a new Chief Executive will begin this summer.

Alan Stacey, says:

"i??I feel really grateful to have contributed to our mission of creating ground-breaking and fearless productions for audiences across the country. The peerless Headlong team have been a source of continuous inspiration and I'd like to say thank you to both them and to the equally impressive Board for their support in making ambitious plans become a reality. I'm looking forward to the next ten months with Headlong and to welcoming in the next leaders of the organisation over the coming months."

Donna Munday, Chair of the Board of Trustees says:

i??"It has been a privilege to work with Alan over the past 5 years and to see the company develop in so many important ways under his leadership. As well as reaching hundreds of thousands of audience members across the country, Alan and the team have significantly expanded the work Headlong does in terms of artist development, communities and digital exploration. Despite the challenges of the pandemic, the commercial success of recent productions and the generosity of new donors mean that he will leave the company in a strong financial position, providing a brilliant opportunity for the incoming leadership team. We will miss Alan hugely, and the whole board is extremely grateful to him for his excellent contribution to the success of Headlong over the last few years."