Chris Honer will step down as Artistic Director of the Library Theatre Company in 2014. Chris has led the Company for more than twenty years, and during that time the LTC has strengthened its reputation as a key producer of contemporary drama and modern classics, has developed a rich participation programme with a strong emphasis on communities with poor access to the arts, and has nurtured partnerships with new artists and companies in the region through the RePlay Festival. He also initiated the current highly successful programme of site-specific theatre pieces which started last year with Hard Times and continues with the premiere of Jackie Kay’s Manchester Lines currently playing at Number One First Street, Manchester. The Company has won over forty Manchester Evening News Theatre Awards during this period, and Chris’s own productions of Brecht and Arthur Miller have been particularly acclaimed. His next will be the regional premiere of Richard Bean’s The Heretic in September at the Lowry.
Chris Honer said: “I’m delighted that in these challenging times the Library Theatre Company has secured a great future in partnership with Cornerhouse. Leading the LTC has been a terrific job, and I’m very proud of all the Company has achieved, but, after more than twenty years, I think it’s time for someone else to have a go. Announcing my departure now allows the new Artistic Director to be appointed soon to help plan the programme for the new building.”
LTC will move to its new home on First Street, Manchester, with Cornerhouse as a merged organisation, in the second half of 2014. Chris Honer has been developing the new artistic programme for 2014 and onwards and will be joined in doing so by the new Artistic Director once appointed. Together they will shape what will be a compelling new future for theatre and the arts in a new organisation whose influence will extend well beyond the North West.