Kwame Kwei-Armah in the Young Vic main house

Photo: India Mae Alby

Changing Faces

Kwei-Armah to step down from Young Vic

Neil Puffett
2 min read

KWAME KWEI-ARMAH will leave the Young Vic in the autumn after six years as Artistic Director,

He joined the Young Vic in February 2018, becoming the first African Caribbean director to lead a major British theatre.

Kwei-Armah will programme this season and a further production for 2025 before stepping down in autumn 2024.

During his tenure he has produced 40 productions, including 30 in the main house, in which more than half of the writers and directors were women. 

Black and Global Majority artists have directed over half and written 48% of all main house shows and the percentage of Black and Global Majority staff has risen from 11% to 44% – with 40% in senior management.    

Kwei-Armah said: “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. 

“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." 

GLENN EARLE, Chair of the Board, said: “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. 

"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." 

Recruitment for a new Artistic Director will begin next week.