Announcing our new National Theatre Associates and Peter Hall Bursary Recipients

We’re thrilled to share that playwright and actor Natasha Gordon and voice coach and performer Hazel Holder have been invited to join the National Theatre as Associates.

These positions, appointed by our Director Rufus Norris, are for leading artists, creatives and theatre makers who have made an outstanding contribution to the life and reputation of our work.

They will provide thought leadership and advice across all areas of our artistic mission, galvanising change and providing fresh perspectives on the decisions of our leaders. They also take on special projects that they both initiate and at the request of the Director, as well as make their own work.

The Peter Hall Bursary is awarded every two years by the National Theatre Foundation to support directors, both financially and artistically. Each director will have the opportunity over the next two years to gain a greater understanding of the workings of the National Theatre and be supported to develop work for our stages.

Having engaged extensively with stage productions across the country, the Peter Hall Bursaries have been awarded to Atri Banerjee and Rachel Bagshaw. This year a short-list of directors was considered which had a focus on the particular skills and expertise that are not currently represented among the NT’s Associate and Resident Directors. The bursary recipients were then selected by Rufus Norris, Nina Steiger, Head of Play Development, and the National Theatre Associates based on the exciting contribution and richness of practice each director will bring to the National Theatre and wider industry as a result of their appointment.

One of our Associate Directors will work closely with the Peter Hall Bursary Directors in a mentor capacity and the two-year Bursary will support a period of artistic development and research and create a space to explore and further develop their own creative practice.

Natasha Gordon

Playwright and actor Natasha Gordon made her playwrighting debut with Nine Night at the National Theatre in 2018. Nine Night transferred to Trafalgar Studios in the West End making her the first black British female playwright to be produced in the West End. Natasha won the Most Promising Playwright Award at both the Evening Standard Theatre Awards and the Critics Circle Awards in 2018. Natasha is currently under commission here.

Hazel Holder

Voice coach and performer Hazel Holder has worked across film, television and theatre including with pioneering companies such as Clean Break, Marginal Voices, Cast Women’s Charity and Clod Ensemble as a Performing Medicine Associate Artist. Her recent work for the National Theatre includes Blues for an Alabama Sky, Trouble in Mind and Rockets and Blue Lights.

Atri Banerjee

Atri Banerjee’s has received acclaim for his re-imagining of classic texts and canonical titles for big stages. His recent work, including The Glass Menagerie (Royal Exchange) and Britannicus (Lyric Hammersmith), both demonstrate his ambition to use bold casting, beautiful design and a refreshed lens to share these stories, at scale and in new ways. In 2019, for his production of Hobson’s Choice at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Atri won The Stage Debut Award for Best Director. He was recently named in The Stage 25 list of theatre-makers to look out for in 2022 and beyond.

Rachel Bagshaw

Rachel Bagshaw is an artist with a seasoned experimental practice whose work spans devising, immersive technologies and the integration of creative access. Rachel has worked extensively on plays for young audiences, radical adaptations and ensemble-led projects with young people.  Her recent work includes A Dead Body in Taos (Fuel) and Augmented by Sophie Woolley (Royal Exchange/Told by an Idiot) and her critically acclaimed work The Shape of Pain won a Fringe First at Edinburgh in 2018.