RTST Sir Peter Hall Director Award 2025
The RTST is proud to be running its 2025 RTST Sir Peter Hall Director Award with Mercury Theatre in Colchester, in partnership with the Rose Theatre in Kingston upon Thames and Storyhouse in Chester.
We are delighted to announce Lily Dyble as the winner of the 2025 RTST Sir Peter Hall Director Award. Lily will be staging an adaptation of her chosen play Jane Eyre for the upcoming tour in the autumn.
On the 24th May 2026, the Award and RTST’s work for British Theatre was celebrated at a reception held atop the Swan beside Shakespeares’ Globe, and co-hosted by the RTST Chairman, Sir Geoffrey Cass, RTST Trustee Sir Ian McKellen and RTST Council Member Roger Allam.
The reception was attended by many leading names in British Theatre and representatives of numerous regional theatres, as well as many early-career actors and creatives.
Lily Dyble is a director working across theatre, musical theatre and opera. As a director, Lily’s work includes: My Pet Star (with book and lyrics; Marlowe Theatre); A VeryExpensive Poison (Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts); Fun Home (Mountview); SweeneyTodd (The Egg, Theatre Royal Bath); Roald Dahl’s Revolting Rhymes (UK tour; Opera Holland Park/Waterperry Opera Festival); The Water Diviner’s Tale (Opera North); Forbidden Touch (co-director; Welsh National Opera and the National Opera Studio). As an associate director: Here We Are (National Theatre); The Producers (Garrick Theatre); RichardII (Bridge Theatre); Guys & Dolls (Bridge Theatre); Abigail’s Party (Stratford East); The Baker’sWife (Menier Chocolate Factory); A Night at the Opera (Royal Opera House/Nevill Holt Opera); WithAll Our Hearts (Adelphi Theatre).
The runner up of the 2025 Award is Sophie Drake. Sophie is an award-winning theatre director and dramaturg based in London. In 2024, she won the Best Director Stage Debut award for The Bleeding Tree at Southwark Playhouse.
As Director: Charley’s Aunt (Watermill Theatre); Burying Your Brother in The Pavement (Rose Bruford Final Year); The Bleeding Tree (Southwark Playhouse – winner of Best Director at Stage Debut Awards 2024 and 5x Off-West-End award nominations including Best Director); Sea Wall (Turner Contemporary/ International Tour); I Lived for Art (The Guildhall, Salisbury); My Boys (Theatre503). As Assistant and Associate Director: Mrs Warren’s Profession (Garrick Theatre); Hamlet (RSC); The Hunt (St. Ann’s Warehouse); Patriots (Almeida Theatre/ West End/ Broadway); Backstairs Billy (Duke of York’s Theatre); Doctor Who: Time Fracture (Immersive Everywhere); Hamlet; The Cherry Orchard; The Chalk Garden (Theatre Royal Windsor); God’s Dice (Soho Theatre); The Weatherman (Park Theatre); Maggie May (Finborough Theatre); In Lipstick (Pleasance Theatre); A Sticky Season (Tristan Bates Theatre); Homos, or Everyone in America (Finborough Theatre).
The Stage – Lily Dyble wins 2025 Sir Peter Hall Director Award Theatre Weekly – Lily Dyble Wins 2025 RTST Sir Peter Hall Director Award – Theatre Weekly
OTHER 6 FINALISTS FOR 2025 AWARD
Emily Aboud
Anoushka Bonwick
Jessica Daniels
Molly Stacey
Rachael Walsh
Imy Wyatt Corner
The evening was full of the same sentiment; impressing the importance of regional theatres providing vital access to not only world class theatre, but to a creative community which might otherwise not exist. The speeches and award giving were followed by the sparkling Paula Sides who performed to the room, overlooking the thames.
The annual RTST Sir Peter Hall Director Award is designed to provide an up-and-coming director with a first-time, career-breakthrough opportunity to originate and direct, as sole or lead director, a fully-funded production as part of a main season of plays on the main stage of a mid-scale British regional theatre and to take that production on tour to other mid-scale regional theatres, and to provide grant support for the creation of that production.
The name of the Award honours the memory of the RTST’s co-founder Sir Peter Hall.
IMPORTANT NOTE: It is commonly recognised in the theatre industry that the opportunities for directors to progress from directing on the small-scale to directing on the mid-scale are rare. This Award scheme is designed for directors who already have a track-record of professional on-stage directing experience and who aspire to originate and direct their own production on the mid-scale but have not yet had the opportunity to do so. TheAward creates such an opportunity. It does not, however, circumvent the need for a director to have sufficient prior professional experience to be judged ready to take on the considerable challenges of originating and directing a mid-scale production for their first time – that being a production whose creation will involve significant expenditure by the participating theatres and the RTST. For that reason, the Award Rules stipulate strict minimum criteria regarding professional experience that candidates must satisfy in order to be eligible to enter.
The RTST Sir Peter Hall Director Award opened for entries on 10th July 2025 and the closing date for entries is 6.00pm on Monday, 1 September 2025.
Candidates are invited to pitch their ideas for directing a production that will bring together a range of exciting practitioners to create an imaginative, engaging and popular production for the widest possible range of audience members. Candidates can choose a classic or modern play (in the English language), or an existing adaptation for the stage (in the English language) of a novel or film. The candidate’s ideas for their chosen play must demonstrate their artistic potential and the potential of their production to cultivate new and existing audiences. With the audience in mind, we encourage candidates to consider what sort of play might provide an audience with a “great night out”, and we particularly welcome suggestions of titles that have familiarity/audience recognition, and in particular comedies, and/or thrillers.
While it is intended that the play directed by the Award-winner will be the play that is the subject of their entry, this outcome cannot be guaranteed owing to a variety of factors, such as: availability of rights; pre-arranged or historical programming at Mercury Theatre, Rose Theatre, and Storyhouse; and/or new ideas arising from the creative relationship struck between the winning director and Mercury Theatre and its partners. Candidates are therefore invited to propose, in brief terms, other play options. In 2023, the play directed by the 2022 winner was the play featured in their entry; in other years, the play ultimately directed by the winner has been different from the one featured in their entry; but, in every case, the play ultimately directed has been chosen by mutual agreement between the winner and the producing theatre.
Entries will be considered by the RTST with the assistance of Mercury Theatre with a view to producing a Long-list of up to 20 entries.
The Long-list will be submitted for consideration by a Selection Panel comprising Chair, Natasha Rickman, Artistic Director of Mercury Theatre; Natalie Ibu, Artistic Director, Northern Stage; Roger Allam, actor; Robin Belfield, director, writer and Associate Director of The Unicorn Theatre; Simon Kenny, stage and costume designer; Christopher Haydon, Artistic Director of Rose Theatre; Anne Odeke, playwright and actor; Helen Redcliffe, Creative Producer at Storyhouse and Ian Rickson, director.
A majority of the members of this 2025 Selection Panel have not served on the Award Panel in previous years.
The Selection Panel will select a Short-list of up to eight candidates.
Short-listed candidates will be invited to Director Workshops in London on the weekend of Saturday 18 and Sunday, 19 October 2025, at which they will be required to demonstrate their skills by directing actors in a text-based scene of a play, after which they will be interviewed by the Selection Panel. The particular scene will be settled with candidates in advance of the Workshops. The Selection Panel will observe the Workshops. On the second day of the Workshops, up to four finalists will be selected for a further interview, this being the final stage in the selection process.
The Selection Panel will choose the ultimate Award-winner and official Runner-up, who will be publicly announced after the Workshops.
Although there can only be one Award-winner and one official Runner-up, the Award scheme is designed to provide a positive and meaningful professional experience for all the candidates who are selected for participation in the Workshops. They will all receive constructive feedback from the Selection Panel after the winner of the Award is announced.
It is intended that the Award winner will benefit from the spotlight of publicity generated by the promotional activities of the RTST and Mercury Theatre and its co-producers in relation to the Award and the Production.
The winner’s success will be celebrated at an Award reception in London organised by the RTST, to which leading theatre practitioners will be invited. The runner-up is also celebrated at this reception.
The winner’s Production will be staged in autumn 2026. The Award winner will not be required to seek funding for the Production. The RTST has agreed to make a grant of £60,000 to Mercury Theatre to be applied towards the costs of staging the Production. It is a condition of the grant that Mercury Theatre participates in the Award scheme and facilitates the Production. While the RTST’s contribution is significant, the majority of the costs of the Production will, however, be borne by Mercury Theatre and its co-producing theatres.
The Award winner will be the sole director of the Production and will be paid a fee of £8,000 plus expenses by Mercury Theatre for undertaking this role. The Production’s cast and stage crew will be paid at the prevailing UK Theatre rates or higher.
The official Runner-up will receive mentoring and professional support from Mercury Theatre.
For the rules of, and information about how to enter, the 2025 Award scheme, please visit our Rules & Information page.
Comments from the organisers:
“We’re proud that, once again, our unique Award and associated grant will be the catalyst for a regional touring production directed by the winner who will be making their mid-scale directing debut. The opportunity conferred on the winner is truly career-transformative. But the Award is not “all about the winner”. For those who reach an advanced stage in the selection process, the Award gives valuable professional experience, recognition and connections – many directors have reported that this has opened doors for them. Our last winner won on entering for the sixth time, yet she reported that, even in the ‘unsuccessful years’, the connections that the RTST enabled her to make, helped her grow and brought her work.”
– Mark Hawes, Director of the RTST
“The RTST is a rare and career-changing opportunity for a director, and we are incredibly proud to be hosting the 2025 award here in Colchester. The award encompasses everything we love here at the Mercury – exciting, high-quality theatre, artists making strides in the next stages of their career, and the opportunity to collaborate with our friends in Kingston and Chester, as well as the fantastic team at the RTST. I hope that any director who is eligible, sends in an application, and I can’t wait to meet the incredible cohort of artists that apply.”
– Natasha Rickman, Artistic Director of Mercury Theatre
The RTST Sir Peter Hall Director Award scheme is run by the RTST, a registered charity, in fulfilment of its charitable objects. All of the RTST’s work in setting up and running the Award scheme to provide this unique career opportunity for directors and the associated catalytic production grant to a theatre company – in this case, Mercury Theatre in Colchester – is undertaken by the Director of the RTST and the other Trustees and volunteers for no remuneration. The members of the Panel who are freelancers or acting in a personal capacity are offered fees. The actors who participate in the Director Workshops are paid fees. The production grant made by the RTST pursuant to the Award scheme is provided out of its charitable funds, which derive wholly from donations to the RTST.