Derby Theatre has appointed Ruby Glaskin as its new creative producer—a role with specific responsibility to manage the theatre’s In Good Company programme.
In Good Company provides “mentorship, business support and high-profile performance opportunities” for emerging artists and those training in an educational setting. The scheme aims to support them in attempting to establish links with organisations which will programme their work.
The professional development programme is funded by Arts Council England and is a collaboration between Derby Theatre, Create Theatre in Mansfield and Embrace Arts in Leicester.
Ruby Glaskin is an independent producer and theatre-maker with a wide range of experience across theatre, dance and live art. In January she produced Walking the Tightrope: the Tension Between Art and Politics for Offstage Theatre, a programme of specially commissioned, five-minute plays by writers including Caryl Churchill and Mark Ravenhill, at Theatre Delicatessen in London.
She is co-director of Milk Presents, who performed at Derby Theatre’s DEparture Lounge Festival in 2013, and has produced all the company’s professional productions to date.
She said, “I’m thrilled to be the new creative producer for In Good Company. Having come up through a similar scheme myself, I know what an impact a scheme like this can have. I hope to allow the programme to flourish from its promising foundations.
“Taking part in the first DEparture Lounge festival with my company Milk Presents showed me what an exciting and enthusiastic environment there is at Derby Theatre and I can't wait to be a part of it. I want to nurture risk-taking work and artistic progress, continuing to cultivate the East Midlands as a dynamic hub for ambitious artists.”
Derby Theatre’s artistic director Sarah Brigham added, “I'm absolutely thrilled that we'll be working with Ruby Glaskin on this project. In Good Company is an exciting and ambitious scheme to redefine how we connect with artists across the region.
“Ruby is an incredibly exciting producer and theatre-maker, with a brilliant and enviable breadth of experience, and a real energy for supporting artists to take risks, develop their voice and craft and find new ways to connect to audiences.”
Ruby Glaskin replaces Natalie Ibu who left to become artistic director of Tiata Fahodzi, a British-African theatre company based in London.