The Young Vic in London has announced that its artistic director, Kwame Kwei-Armah, is stepping down in Autumn 2024.
He joined the Young Vic in February 2018. During his tenure he has produced 40 productions across the theatre’s spaces, including 30 in the Main House, where more than half of all writers and directors were women. Black and Global Majority artists have directed over half and written 48% of all Main House shows. Off stage, the Young Vic has gone from 11% to 44% Black and Global Majority staff across the organisation and 40% in senior management.
Kwame will also programme one further production for 2025, and the recruitment of a new Artistic Director will begin next week.
Kwame’s final season will include the European premiere of Tony Award-winning rock musical Passing Strange, from 14 May to 6 July.
The show will be directed by Liesl Tommy (Respect, Eclipsed), and has book and lyrics by singer-songwriter Stew, and music by Stew Stewart and Heidi Rodewald, created in collaboration with Annie Dorsen.
Passing Strange sees a young, Black musician set out on an electrifying musical odyssey to find himself and his place in the world, swapping his middle-class L.A. upbringing for punk rock and protest in 1980s Amsterdam and Berlin.
The creative team will also include Set and Costume Designer Ben Stones, Sound Designer Tom Gibbons, Musical Supervisor Brandon Michael Nase, Musical Director Art Terry, Choreographer Dickson Mbi, Casting Director Heather Basten CDG, and Voice and Dialect Coach Hazel Holder.
Kwame Kwei-Armah will direct his final production at the Young Vic with the world premiere of A Face in the Crowd, a cautionary tale about the dangers of celebrity, power, and politics based on the classic ‘50s Hollywood film, with music and lyrics by Elvis Costello and book by Sarah Ruhl (Eurydice, The Clean House).
A Face in the Crowd will run at the Young Vic from 10 September to 9 November.
Other new productions include a revival of The Little Foxes by Lillian Hellman (The Children’s Hour), directed by Olivier Award-winning director Lyndsey Turner (The Witches, The Crucible).
The Little Foxes will run from 4 December 2024 to 8 February 2025, produced in association with Second Half Productions, and the creative team will also include Design by Lizzie Clachan, and Sound Design is by Tingying Dong.
The venue will also run a INNOVATE: Legacy & Learning Symposium, as part of its Taking Part initiative, running from 11 to 16 March; the Neighbourhood Theatre Company will present May Fest, a takeover of the Young Vic Theatre with free workshops, events and experiences for the local Lambeth and Southwark community, from 9 to 16 May; and the Sundown Kiki Reloaded documentary by Asa Haynes and Jamel Duane Alatise is released today, celebrating Taking Part’s partnership with New York’s Hetrick-Martin Institute.
Coming up next at the Young Vic is Patrick Marber’s new play Nachtland from 20 February, staring Jane Horrocks, John Heffernan, Dorothea Myer-Bennett, Angus Wright, Gunnar Cauthery and Jenna Augen.
More about tickets to Passing Strange at the Young Vic
More about tickets to A Face in the Crowd at the Young Vic
More about tickets to The Little Foxes at the Young Vic
What They Said
Kwame Kwei-Armah, Artistic Director of the Young Vic said in a statement: “It’s been the honour of a lifetime to lead the Young Vic and I have been served magnificently by the team at the Arts Council, the Board and all of my colleagues. I step down knowing that our team and artists are representative of London and that we have continued the theatre’s incredible contribution to this industry and our community. The three pillars that have guided my tenure have been innovation, access and community, and I’m proud of all that we have achieved. But it is a bittersweet moment. The painful reality is I am leaving a subsidised sector where 13 years of standstill funding is taking its toll. For decades the theatre industry has fuelled the UK’s world-renowned creative industries, providing vital pathways for artists to flourish, going from subsidised theatre, into the West End, and into TV and film. But without investment we could lose this pipeline of talent within a generation. I’m hopeful that this can and must change but it needs sincere government intervention. I want to thank our audiences and supporters who have continued their Young Vic journey with us and many who have joined us for the first time. I invite you to join me as I’m rocking out at the Young Vic with shows that mean the world to me and sum up what a building like this can do. Passing Strange is a brilliant post-modern Black rock musical directed by Liesl Tommy with book and lyrics by Stew, and music by Stew Stewart and Heidi Rodewald; A Face in the Crowd is a political metaphor for our times with music by Elvis Costello and book by Sarah Ruhl; and Lillian Hellman’s The Little Foxes with Lyndsey Turner, sees one of the finest directors in Britain, making a classic play speak to the here and now.”
Glenn Earle, Chair of the Board, said: “It has been one of the great pleasures of my professional life to work closely with the phenomenon that is Kwame Kwei-Armah. Kwame is an exceptional artist and inspirational leader. He has brought his energy, creativity, artistic brilliance, generosity of spirit and sense of social responsibility to the role of Artistic Director of the Young Vic over the last six years. Leading and inspiring an incredible team, he has built on the extraordinary achievements of those artistic directors who have come before him to make the Young Vic the groundbreaking, representative and world leading theatre it is today. Kwame has led the Young Vic during one of the most challenging periods for the theatre sector in living memory and has done so with great skill, courage and clarity of vision. He has ensured excellence on our stages and positive impact well beyond The Cut. Under Kwame’s leadership, multiple Young Vic productions have transferred to the West End and Broadway, Best Seat in Your House has been streamed to over 85 countries and industry awards have regularly come our way. At the same time, Kwame has demonstrated a clear and consistent commitment to community – both to theatre more broadly and to the people of Lambeth and Southwark – and has ensured that we have continued to invest in and expand the reach both of our artist-based Creators Program and our local community-oriented Taking Part. On behalf of the Board, I thank Kwame for all he has done for the Young Vic and wish him all the very best for the next steps of his artistic and creative career when he leaves us later this year. In the meantime, I am confident that Kwame’s final season will be absolutely unmissable. We will soon start looking for someone who shares our values to lead the Young Vic into our next exciting phase of globally significant theatre-making with a clarity of vision and purpose and unbridled creativity and joy.”
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