Jack McNamara Steps Down From New Perspectives

Artistic Director of New Perspectives Jack McNamara is to step down in July after nine years in the role, to take up a new position as Artistic Director of Newcastle's Live Theatre.

Since joining New Perspectives in July 2012, Jack's tenure at New Perspectives has seen the company's first West End transfer of their award-winning production of Chigozie Obioma's Man Booker Prize shortlisted first novel The Fishermen in 2019, which was recently broadcast on BBC Radio Three, and a BE Festival MESS Award for Sisyphus, a collaboration with the radical Belgium artist Thibault Delfiere. His staged adaptations have ranged from Saul Bellow to Aki Kaurismäki and Lars Von Trier whose office comedy The Boss of it All marked his first production for New Perspectives. During lockdown, Jack re-imagined The Boss of it All as a live Zoom production which is currently available to download on Soho Theatre On Demand.

From March 2020 he has explored a range of platforms from developing Love From Cleethorpes, a postcard drama mailed to over 2,000 people in 26 countries, David Rudkin's dramatic podcast series PlacePrints which reached no.25 UK fiction podcasts of 2020 and short plays performed live by telephone and WhatsApp. Jack has also nurtured the careers of artists across the East Midlands including introducing the New Associates programme, which offers targeted support to nine East Midlands' artists each year.

Jack McNamara said "It is nearly impossible to express how much I have learnt in the past nine years running New Perspectives. The amount of mind-expanding artists, communities and places we have made work with and for has completely redefined how I see the world and art's place within it. I am hugely grateful for all of the experiences I have had, with each artist, with each audience member, with every venue. We have taken so many risks with our programme of shape-shifting work, and the success of these things has been through the courage and generosity of others. I will be forever indebted to our brilliant staff and trustees who, against the challenging circumstances we find ourselves in today, created the conditions where new ideas and approaches could always thrive. I am hugely excited to begin my adventure with Live Theatre and look forward to seeing someone else take New Perspectives to gloriously unexpected places."

On behalf of the New Perspectives Board of Trustees, its chair Amanda Farr said "Jack has taken the company and our audiences on a truly international and inspiring journey, continuing to showcase the imagination and bold creative vision of the company. We wish him all the best for the future and look forward to the search for his successor, who will join New Perspectives at an exciting time to build on this creative ambition, community engagement and talent development programmes as we approach our 50th anniversary year"

New Perspectives is poised to open a digital installation of B S Johnson's House Mother Normal (5th - 31st May) realised and directed by Tim Crouch with the Brighton Festival and release their second postcard drama Dare to Look Down! following the success of Love From Cleethorpes. The podcast series of David Rudkin's PlacePrints is available to download across all major podcast platforms and future work includes a national rural tour of Janet Frame's autobiographical An Angel At My Table adapted by Anita Sullivan in Spring 2021.

New Perspectives will be recruiting a new Artistic Director and the application process will open in May.