Ed Collier, Co-Director of independent theatre company China Plate, shines a spotlight on the artists and professionals who have shaped his career.
In 2001, having graduated from university and drama school, I inevitably found that my acting career didn’t quite take off in the way I’d hoped. Whilst temping as a receptionist at British Screen Finance I met Lucy Scher, who with her business partner Charlotte Macleod was in the process of setting up The Script Factory over the road. Lucy was brilliant, self-effacing, entrepreneurial and knew how to structure a great story. She was as astute with business and finance as she was with story, and opened my eyes to development producing. More than anyone else, Lucy shaped the vision that Paul Warwick (Co-Director of China Plate) and I have developed through the organisation.
The greatest tip I picked up from her was to find ways of making each element of the creative process financially viable, and it is on her Script Factory model that China Plate’s development, programming and producing philosophy is based. She was one of the first China Plate board members.
Very sadly, Lucy passed away last year.