DONMAR GETS NEW BOSS

THE newly appointed chair of the Donmar Warehouse’s board has big plans for the little theatre with a reputation for punching above its weight.

Adam Kenwright (pictured) said digitalisation, and more outreach, are the keys to attracting younger and more diverse audiences — and talent (on and backstage) to the London venue.

The dynamic 48-year-old producer, who recently stepped down as a top executive at the Ambassador Theatre Group, praised the Donmar’s leadership under artistic chief Michael Longhurst and executive director Henny Finch. And he revealed that Blindness, Simon Stephens’s innovative, immersive adaptation of Jose Saramago’s dystopian novel, narrated by the recorded voice of Juliet Stevenson, which enticed folks into the Donmar in the summer, will transfer to the Daryl Roth Theatre off-Broadway next year.

Longhurst, latest in a long line of visionaries at the Donmar (after Sam Mendes, Michael Grandage and Josie Rourke) has already told Kenwright and his new trustees, including Tessa Ross and June Sarpong, of his upcoming season.

But it can’t be staged until the theatre’s allowed to reopen. ‘We have 251 seats,’ Kenwright said. ‘We can’t do it with socially-distanced performances.’

He added that the trustees are there to ensure that Longhurst has enough money ‘to commission new plays, and take risks’. And though he and his colleagues want more inclusion across the board at the theatre, ‘we don’t want to condescend to be diverse’.