What To Expect In This Episode:
- Thinking about the concept of âa careerâ from a working class background.
- Having the audacity to apply for things you arenât qualified for⌠and doing them anyway.
- Falling in love â getting your heart broken â pouring yourself into the work â repeat.
- Navigating gender politics in the theatre:
- The wonders and challenges of carving out spaces for women theatre artistsâ against all odds.
- Founding the Womenâs Playhouse Trust.
- Tensions of the Artistic Director role: making bold moves and doing really good work, and the board still disliking you.
- The importance of cultivating a network of other artists around you.
About The Guest:
Sue Dunderdale is a director most known for fostering new talent and award winning writers. Her career in theatre has taken her from founding PENTABUS Theatre Company to the Cambridge Theatre Company, through the RSC to being Artistic Director of the Soho Theatre Company and of Greenwich Theatre.
She was selected for the BBC Film/TV Directors Course and has directed many episodic dramas (Eastenders, Coronation Street, London Bridge, The Bill, Casualty, Holby, Peak Practice, Rockface, etc), three Drama/Documentaries and two single Dramas. The latest was two episodes of HOLBY in 2015/16. She has also directed numerous short films.
She is in development for a feature film and a television series with Evolutionary Films. And has also written her own film script, BAD ENGLISH and co-written FOOD with Stephen Wyatt.
From 2004 until 2014 she was Head of MAs at RADA and Leader of the MA in Directing. In that time and since then, as a free-lance theatre director, she directed, new plays by Chris Katic, Simon Burt, Pam Gems, Jonathan Larkin, Chloe Moss, Juan RadrigĂĄn, Melissa Murray, Stephen Wyatt and Joshua Val Martin. Most recently she directed GIDEON by Daniel Mawson a play for actors and professional musicians for Bradford City of Culture and a northern tour.
Her book âDirecting the Decadesâ was published by Routledge in February 2022.
âď¸ Sueâs Shared Resource âď¸
âCreate networks amongst yourselves. So you can support each other, so you can produce for each other⌠You need those colleagues you can work with⌠Create associations that can lobby for things to happen, as well as make things happen.â
More of Sueâs wisdom can be found in her book Directing The Decades (linked below.)
đ And if youâre looking to connect with other like minded directors and creatorsâŚÂ be sure to follow @directorspathway on Instagram and join the growing DP community on our Substack.
Links
Sue Dunderdale's Website
Check out Sueâs book: Directing The Decades - Lessons from Fifty Years of Becoming a Director