Christopher Haydon to Step Down as Artistic Director of The Gate Theatre

Today, 14 June 2016, Christopher Haydon announced he will step down as Artistic Director of the Gate Theatre, leaving in January 2017 after five years of leading the company. His recently announced new season - Too Close To Home, will be his penultimate season at the Gate Theatre. Haydon will continue programming the Gate up until May 2017, with his last season being announced in late 2016. The post of Artistic Director at the Gate Theatre will be advertised shortly.

Artistic Director, Christopher Haydon said today, "The decision to leave the Gate Theatre has not been an easy one - I love this building, and the people I work with here, very very deeply. It has been an incredible honour to make work in this space, and I'm so proud of the things that we have achieved and the artists that we have championed together. But I have always believed that the Gate derives its unique energy from the process of those who work here discovering everything anew. After five years at the helm I believe it is now time to pass the baton on to someone new - to take this remarkable, tiny yet epic room, and make it their own. Whilst I am looking forward to pursuing a number of new freelance projects that will be announced soon, I will always be a little bit jealous of whoever it is that gets to run this theatre and continue driving it in to the future - they will have one of the best jobs in British theatre. My sincere thanks go to our staff, our audiences and our supporters."

Chair of the Gate Theatre Board, Joseph Smith, said today, "Put simply, Chris has been a brilliant Artistic Director for the Gate Theatre. He's lead the organisation with a clear, uncompromising vision that has rigorously debated many of the important issues of our time. Through his imaginative and visionary work as a director the Gate has flourished and taken its work across the country from its home in Notting Hill. Chris's strong commitment to new play development, diversity and community work has nurtured a new generation of artists who I have no doubt will be at the forefront of the theatre industry in the years to come. He will be leaving the Gate in a position of artistic, financial and organisational strength; it's been a pleasure to work alongside him and the Gate team since I took over as Chair 3 years ago. The Gate Board wish him every success with his future plans."

Haydon took over as Artistic Director of the Gate in 2012. The first production he directed at the Gate, Wittenberg, was a critical and box office success.

As Artistic Director, Haydon has, alongside Executive Director Clare Slater, put new writing at the heart of his programming, engaging with emerging writers and often producing world and European premières at the Gate. These include Lucas Hnath's The Christians (also Traverse Theatre, winner: Fringe First) and the world première of Elinor Cook's Image of an Unknown Young Woman (winner: Best Production, Off West End Awards).

Under Haydon, the Gate has been a springboard for success, discovering and premièring new plays that have gone on to achieve artistic success and worldwide recognition. His world première production of Grounded in 2013 toured to Washington D.C., Sweden and around the UK winning a Fringe First and an Off West End Award for Best Production. Subsequently the play has received numerous productions around the world including a New York production which is about to be made into a major feature film. More recently the Gate Theatre produced the European première of Eclipsed by Danai Gurira. The subsequent Broadway production of this play earned a TONY nomination for Best New Play this year.

Haydon's tenure has also seen the transfer of a number of hit Off Off Broadway shows from New York to London - including Ethan Lipton's award winning No Place To Go, Deb Stein and Suli Holum's Chimera and, opening this week in a coproduction with LIFT and Shoreditch Town Hall, Andrew Schneider's remarkable YOUARENOWHERE.

During his tenure, Haydon put diversity at the heart of the Gate's ethos with an equal 50/50 split of men and women on stage, and a 50/50 split across writers and directors combined. Across all of these groups of artists, those of BAME heritage have made up almost 40% of those Haydon has employed.

A keen supporter of new talent, both on stage and behind the scenes, Haydon worked with and mentored many emerging artists. He appointed Caroline Byrne and Ellen McDougall as Associate Directors at the Gate. Byrne directed Eclipsed in 2015 at the Gate and her recent directing credits include The Taming of the Shrew currently running at Shakespeare's Globe. McDougall directed Idomeneus at the Gate in 2014 before going on to direct The Rolling Stone at Manchester Royal Exchange, the Headlong UK tour of The Glass Menagerie with Greta Scacchi, and in early 2017 will direct Othello at Shakespeare's Globe.

Haydon has also been a supporter of the next generation of theatre designers at the Gate, championing Jerwood Young Designers supported by the Jerwood Charitable Foundation. Participants in the scheme have included Fly Davis - designer of Image of an Unknown Young Woman (winner of the 2015 Off West End Award for Best Design) and I'd Rather Goya Robbed Me of My Sleep Than Some Other Arsehole who has gone on to design numerous shows including the Olivier nominated production of Barbarians at the Young Vic, and the upcoming production of A Streetcar Named Desire with Maxine Peake at Manchester Royal Exchange. Chiara Stephenson, designer of Eclipsed (2015) recently designed The Taming of the Shrew at Shakespeare's Globe.

During his time at the Gate Theatre, in a freelance capacity, Haydon also directed 12 Angry Men (2013) at Birmingham REP which transferred to the West End, with a twice extended run, and toured the UK. Prior to the Gate Theatre, Haydon was an Associate Director at the Bush Theatre, from 2009-2011, where in collaboration with then Artistic Director Josie Rourke he oversaw the Sixty-Six Books project, in which 66 writers responded to the 66 books of the King James Bible.

Haydon's next production for the Gate Theatre is Diary of a Madman, a brand new adaptation of Gogol's classic story by Al Smith, reimagined in contemporary Scotland. The sharply political, witty Diary of a Madman opens at the Traverse Theatre on 5 August, with previews at the Traverse and the Gate Theatre, before returning to the Gate Theatre from 6 - 24 September.