Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre has announced the appointment of rising young director Matthew Xia as its new associate artistic director.
An award-winning theatre director, composer, journalist, broadcaster and DJ, he will join the Exchange in September, working with artistic director Sarah Frankcom to take the company “in exciting new directions”.
Last year Matthew was recipient of the Regional Theatre Young Director Scheme bursary and took up the post as Director in Residence at the Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse Theatres where he directed the première of Daniel Matthew’s Scrappers and was Associate Director of the Everyman Opening Ceremony Lights Up.
The Exchange has also appointed Benji Reid as an associate artist. An award-winning visual theatre director, who has been the recipient of the NESTA dreamtime award and runner up for Art 05 award and currently the recipient of The Welcome Trust award, he trained in classical / contemporary dance, lighting design and choreography at the Northern School of Contemporary Dance. Benji is one of the pioneers of the hip-hop theatre movement in the UK.
He joins two other recently-appointed associate artists: actress Maxine Peake and writer and performer Chris Thorpe.