Theatre Centre announce new Artistic Director, Eleanor Manners

We are excited to announce Eleanor Manners as our next Artistic Director, while laying out two exciting strands to our work in 2025 - 2026. Eleanor joins Executive Director & CEO Emma Rees from April 2025 and succeeds Rob Watt, who leaves the organisation in March after five highly successful years.

Eleanor will be at the artistic helm of the organisation as we develop their next touring production, a new play commission written by playwright and Grime poet Debris Stevenson (Poet in da Corner, Royal Court). Theatre Centre are also launching a new artist development platform, the Brian Way Writers’ Room, which commences later this year.

With an exciting background working as the Youth Theatre Director at Leeds Playhouse, alongside a freelance career as a director, voice coach and facilitator, Eleanor brings a dynamic and exciting energy to Theatre Centre, keen to build on the organisation’s seven decades of vital work with young people, creating theatre that speaks directly to them and building accessible pathways into the arts.  

Eleanor Manners, incoming Artistic Director, said: “It’s an incredible honour to step into the role of Artistic Director at Theatre Centre, a company with a seven decade history of creating new work for young audiences and a legacy of shaping educational theatre in schools. Under Rob Watt, Theatre Centre has championed young people’s voices, creating work with and for them through Future Makers which puts their experiences at the heart of the writing process. I’m excited to build on that foundation, continuing to empower young audiences and artists alike.

With an all-female leadership team and a new home in Crawley, Theatre Centre is positioned to become a vibrant hub of creativity for the community, whilst continuing its national reach with touring shows to schools and venues. I’m looking forward to connecting with young people in the region, nurturing talent, and fostering a space where creativity can thrive.”

Executive Director Emma Rees said: “We're thrilled to be welcoming Eleanor to Theatre Centre. The energy, warmth and wealth of experience working with young people that she brings will make sure we continue to build on Rob’s amazing work and on our decades of groundbreaking practice.

As Rob passes the baton to Eleanor, we’re also very excited to announce that we’ve just commissioned Debris Stevenson as the writer of our next touring production. We're looking forward to seeing how the power of Debris' practice will ignite Future Makers spaces as she and Eleanor develop the touring work.

Theatre Centre’s strength and longevity lie in our ability to evolve while staying true to our national mission. That’s why we’re proud to launch the Brian Way Writers' Room, a platform for all our work with Resident Writers, artist development, and young writers across the UK.”

Debris Stevenson’s new commission will be developed through conversations with young people in schools and community groups across the country, before touring nationally to secondary schools and venues around the UK in spring 2026. A dyslexic writer, Grime poet, hybrid-actor and pro-raver, Debris Stevenson’s work explores the intersectional, unexpected, and unjust – often whilst making her audiences dance, question, and laugh. 

Debris follows in the footsteps of Theatre Centre’s most recent Resident Writers including Mohamed-Zain Dada (Blue Mist), Katie Redford (Tapped), Charlie Josephine (I Joan), and Ryan Calais Cameron (For Black Boys), whose work led to the creation of Dizzy, Wish You Weren’t Here, Birds and Bees and Human Nurture, all of which toured the UK between 2022 and 2024, in co-production with Sheffield Theatres.

Resident Writers are generously paid to work collaboratively with young people across the UK for a minimum of six months, listening to the ideas and conversations that they bring to the table. Through this process, writers develop pitches for new plays with young people at their heart, for commission by Theatre Centre for future tours. Eleanor is excited to bring together our next cohort of three Resident Writers.

The newly announced Brian Way Writers’ Room, named after Theatre Centre’s co-founder and leader in the field of young people’s work, creates a platform for all the strands of our writer development work, including work with young writers, and will support the continuation of Theatre Centre’s 70+ year legacy of working with trailblazing playwrights.