Shakespeare job is a Midsummer nightmare
Theatre publishes brutal open letters from former artistic directors revealing the reality of the role
The search for a new artistic director of Shakespeare’s Globe took an unlikely turn as its outgoing and former artistic directors were enlisted by the London theatre to post “open letters” to prospective applicants describing what a terrible place it can be to work.
THE search for a new artistic director of Shakespeare’s Globe took a bizarre turn yesterday as the London theatre enlisted its outgoing and former artistic directors to say what a terrible place it can be to work.
In two postings on the Globe’s own website, billed as “open letters” to the person who will take over, Emma Rice and Dominic Dromgoole warned prospective applicants that the job can be a nightmare.
Mr Dromgoole, who left the theatre last year, said the new director would have to take on the “cabals” and “connivers” who had made Ms Rice’s life a misery.
Ms Rice, pictured below, is leaving early next year after the board took exception to her experimental style.
In her letter, she said: “I have learnt never again to allow myself to be excluded from the rooms where decisions are made.”
She went on: “I chose to leave because, as important and beloved as the Globe is to me, the Board did not love and respect me back.
“It did not understand what I saw, what I felt and what I created with my actors, creative teams and the audience.
“They began to talk of a new set of rules that I did not sign up to and could not stand by.” She was backed by Mr Dromgoole, who spoke of “negativity” and “personality problems” within the building. He said: “The fact that Emma has been stopped in fulfilling her ambitions is heartbreaking. It is also wrong.” Mr Dromgoole said he did not agree with Ms Rice’s decision to introduce contemporary lighting and sound technology to the Globe stage. But he said: “I respect Emma’s choice in doing so, and I cannot respect the blocking of her choice. No one, not committees, not cabals, not connivers, no one can set this policy but the AD.” He advised the new artistic director to “ring-fence with iron and steel your own freedom”. Rather than be embarrassed by the candid posts, the Globe publicised them. A spokesman said: “Shakespeare’s Globe supports open conversation. The letters from Dominic Dromgoole and Emma Rice are part of that respect for free and healthy debate on its future and mission.” The letters did also extol the virtues of the Globe, which was rebuilt a few hundred yards from its original site on London’s South Bank and opened in 1997 under its only other artistic director, Mark Rylance. Ms Rice said her year at the Globe had been “the most intoxicating experience” of her life, praising the audience for providing “the heartbeat and energy of this extraordinary place”. “The Globe deserves an artistic leader so fierce and true that they would steal a building and carry it over the river for what they believe in,” she wrote. And one of the things she has learnt in her year at the theatre? “I have learnt to love Shakespeare,” she wrote.