Indhu Rubasingham has been announced as the new National Theatre boss.
She will join the Southbank institution next Spring and work alongside current director Rufus Norris until he steps down in Spring 2025.
Rubasingham, who ran the Kiln theatre in Kilburn for more than a decade, said she it was a “huge honour” to get “the best job in the world”.
She will be the first female artistic director in the theatre's 60-year history - and the first person of colour to take the top job there.She said: “The National has played an important part in my life - from tentative steps as a teenage theatregoer, to later as a theatre-maker, andto have the opportunity to play a role in its history is an incredible privilege and responsibility.
"Theatre has a transformative power – the ability to bring people together through shared experience and storytelling, and nowhere more so than the National.
“I’ve been fortunate to have directed on the National Theatre’s stages and to have witnessed firsthand the commitment, collaboration, brilliance and pride of those who bring the magic to the building, both on stage and off.”
Rubasingham has brought shows including The Father to the West End and worked with critically acclaimed novelist Zadie Smith on the Wife of Willesden at the Kiln as well as working at the National on shows including Kerry Jackson and The Father and the Assassin.
She was chosen by a panel that included Sir Damon Buffini, who chairs the National Theatre board, and actress Sheila Atim.
Earlier this year, the theatre’s deputy artistic director Clint Dyer said it was time a woman got the top job at the theatre.
Speaking while the recruitment process was still going on, he told the Standard a woman would be “the best person for the job”.
Norris said: “Indhu is an exceptional artist who I respect and admire hugely, and I am so pleased that she will become the next Director when I step down in 2025. She has run Kiln Theatre expertly for over a decade and I know this experience will be invaluable as she moves to the NT – a place she knows well, having directed successfully in each of the three theatres.”
Norris announced his departure earlier this year and said his stint in charge – which included steering the theatre through the covid pandemic – was “the most challenging time in our history”.
He brought stars including Chiwetel Ejiofor, Olivia Colman, Anne-Marie Duff and Cate Blanchett to its stage after taking over in 2015.
