Phil Bartlett Announced As New Artistic Director Of The Hope Theatre

The Hope Theatre Board of Trustees has announced that Phil Bartlett has been appointed to the post of Artistic Director, taking over from Kennedy Bloomer who leaves at the end of August.

Phil trained as a director at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and was previously the Resident Assistant Director at Theatre Royal Plymouth.

His work as director includes Marie, which won the Scottish Arts Club Bright Spark Award at the Edinburgh Fringe and then toured Scotland with Perth Theatre, and A Christmas Carol at the Barn Theatre in Cirencester.

A former finalist for the JMK Award, Phil was Resident Director on the UK and Ireland tour of the Royal Shakespeare Company's Matilda the Musical.

He has delivered outreach and education courses for the Young Vic and Bigfoot Arts Education, managed ticketing for festivals including LIFT and Dance Umbrella, and is a visiting practitioner on the BA Acting programme at the University of Plymouth.

Phil Bartlett said, "I'm really delighted to have been given this rare opportunity to help shape the future of a leading London fringe venue. The Hope Theatre has repeatedly proven it is possible to produce exceptional theatre in the most intimate of spaces, and as the incoming Artistic Director I'm excited to support a diverse range of artists in telling stories that are bold, surprising, and have something vital to say about the world we are living in now."

Jane Mayfield, Chair of the Hope Theatre Board of Trustees said, "It is with great pleasure that we welcome Phil Bartlett as the new Artistic Director of The Hope Theatre from September 2021. We look forward to working with and supporting him in the development of the theatre and are excited about its future under his passionate artistic directorship.

We thank Kennedy Bloomer for all her hard work in ensuring that The Hope Theatre continued during the last year and a half and wish her all the best in her future career."

Hope Theatre Patron Paul Clayton said, "I'm so excited for Phil and the future of The Hope Theatre, we've always been the little theatre with BIG ideas and I have no doubt that this will continue under Phil's Artistic directorship"

Closed since March 2020, this acclaimed 50 seat pub theatre in the heart of Islington reopened in June and has recently announced its autumn season, starting with in-house show FEVER PITCH, running from 31 August - 25 September in the 7pm early slot. Running alongside Fever Pitch in the late slot will be THE GOOD DAD from 31 August - 11 September, followed by KING, from 21 - 25 September. RAT KING will play from 5 - 9 October, LOVESICK will play from 2 - 6 November, followed by DARLING from 9 - 27 November, and this year's festive offering will be a live adaptation of one of the Hope at Home shows put out digitally during the pandemic, 21 ROUND FOR CHRISTMAS, playing from 30 November - 18 December.

Opening in 2013, The Hope Theatre was originally a sister theatre of Islington's King's Head Theatre, renovated from a function room above the famous Hope & Anchor pub and music venue into a black box studio theatre. The Hope Theatre has transferred two productions to the West End (Ushers to the Charing Cross Theatre and the Snoo Wilson's Lovesong Of The Electric Bear to The Arts) and has been home to many world premieres. It also housed the professional world premiere of Joe Orton's Fred And Madge.

The Hope Theatre is a place for audiences and companies to explore BIG ideas. It nurtures and develops new producing models, working with exciting companies to present a mix of new writing, lost gems from well-known writers, re-polished classics and innovatively staged musicals.

Although The Hope Theatre has received no regular public subsidy since its 2013 opening, it was the first Off West End venue to open with a house agreement with Equity. This ensures a legal wage for all actors, stage managers and box office staff working at the theatre.

In 2020, Kennedy Bloomer became Artistic Director of the theatre and navigated the theatre through the global Covid-19 pandemic and total closure by taking The Hope Theatre online.

The Hope Theatre was successfully granted funds from the Arts Council England Emergency Response Fund, the ACE and DCMS Culture Recovery Fund 1 and 2. The Hope Theatre team would like to gratefully acknowledge the role that this funding has played in enabling the venue to survive and reopen this summer.

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