Vicky Featherstone

Vicky Featherstone (born 5 April 1967) is a theatre and artistic director.

Featherstone's first work in professional theatre followed, as an assistant director at the Royal Court in 1990 on Martin Crimp's No One Sees the Video.

In the mid-1990s, Featherstone returned to TV script editing and programme development, having worked for a time as a script editor for Central TV immediately after University.

Whilst a script editor at United Productions, Featherstone conceived, after attending a friend's wedding in Yorkshire, with writer Ashley Pharoah, the series Where the Heart Is, revolving around the lives of district nurses in a close-knit Yorkshire community.

World premieres of Anna Weiss, a study of false memory syndrome by Mike Cullen, Crave, written by Kane on love and loss, Sleeping Around, a 1990s update of La Ronde, and The Cosmonaut's Last Message to the Woman He Once Loved in the Former Soviet Union by David Greig, helped build Paines Plough's reputation.

Under Featherstone the company was noted for its commitment to theatrical activity outside London in the UK regions, and willingness to experiment and collaborate with other theatre companies such as Frantic Assembly and Graeae.

Her hiring of John Tiffany as associate director was also considered a significant contribution to the company's success.

She gained a place on the Regional Theatre Young Director Scheme, under which she spent two years from 1992 to 1994, first as assistant director and then associate director, based at West Yorkshire Playhouse, then under the artistic directorship of Jude Kelly.

She then became resident director at the Octagon Theatre Bolton from 1994 to 1996 and worked at Northern Stage, then became Literary Associate for the Bush Theatre from 1996 to 1997.

She was also involved in the development of the pathologist drama Silent Witness, first broadcast in 1996, for which she was credited as script editor for the first two episodes.

The programme debuted in 1997.

Featherstone was artistic director of Paines Plough, a theatre company based in the UK that specialises in new plays and touring, from 1997 to 2004.

Immediately prior to her appointment, the company was not thriving.

Early on, Featherstone appointed writers Mark Ravenhill as literary manager and Sarah Kane as writer-in-residence, and developed an atmosphere seen as welcoming to writers.

Within two years of her appointment, the company had increased audiences by over 100%.

After Scottish devolution in 1997, long-discussed plans for a national theatre for Scotland began to come to fruition.

In 2000, the Scottish Executive invited the Scottish Arts Council (SAC) to conduct a feasibility study into a Scottish national theatre, and an SAC independent working group subsequently reported in May 2001.

The model for a National Theatre of Scotland (NTS) that was resolved upon was a commissioning theatre, a "theatre without walls", with no need for a new theatre building or a permanent company of actors, but making use of existing theatre buildings, actors and technical staff to create new work to be staged in venues throughout Scotland and internationally.

In September 2003, the Scottish Executive announced confirmed funding of £7.5m for the establishment of the NTS, with £3.5m for the year April 2004 to March 2005 and £4m for the following year.

Robert Findlay, once chief executive of Scottish Radio Holdings, was appointed as chairman, and once a board had also been appointed, the search for the first artistic director for the NTS began.

By the time of Featherstone's departure from Paines Plough in 2004, the company was being described as "a major force for new writing" and "a national and international force in British theatre", staff had doubled from four to eight, she had turned round the company's deficit and turnover had risen to £0.5m per year.

The job of Director of the NTS, to combine the roles of director, chief executive and artistic director, was advertised in May 2004.

NTS chairman Findlay said at the time, "We want someone of clearly outstanding ability. Now it's possible that person will not be working in Scotland at the moment, and then again they may very well be."

He also said that the new director would have to be an outstanding individual.

"We are looking for a genius," he said.

"We need somebody who has wide experience of theatre production, development and nurturing new writing as well as good administrative and financial skills. We are casting the net wide."

The person specification for the job identified an artistic director who, amongst other things, was "a visionary, with.... the ability to bring together diverse talents to create something very special".

Featherstone read the advertisement for the post.

"I thought the vocabulary of the board was fascinating. I thought they spoke the language of true creativity. It was radical, it was challenging. I applied," she recalled in August 2004.

From an initial 30 applications for the post to run the NTS, a short-list of six directors was interviewed.

"I really realised, very quickly, that what I wanted to be was a director, because I'm not a very good actor, and I saw people who were incredible actors, but what I was really excited about was the bigger picture, and the overall-- and putting something together," she said in 2011.

After her initial degree, Featherstone also did an MA in Directing at the university, in association with Manchester's Contact Theatre.

She has been artistic director of London's Royal Court Theatre since April 2013.

Prior to that she was founding artistic director of the National Theatre of Scotland, and before that artistic director of the UK new writing touring theatre company Paines Plough.

Her career has been characterised by significant involvement with new writing.

Featherstone was born in Redhill, Surrey but moved to Scotland at 6 weeks old, where she lived in Clackmannanshire until the age of 7, when her father's work took her around the world.

Her father is a chemical engineer and her mother a nurse.

She is the eldest of three children.

Featherstone was privately educated.

Featherstone studied drama at Manchester University, and soon discovered she favoured directing over acting.