Dan Winder Steps Down as Artistic Director at Iris Theatre

As Iris Theatre's The Hunchback of Notre Dame, the final promenade show in their annual summer season, opens this week in the grounds of St Paul's Church, Covent Garden, Artistic Director Daniel Winder has announced that he is to leave the company he founded and has run for the past 12 years.

He will become Venue Director at Stanley Halls, a Grade II listed performing arts venue in South Norwood.

"It's time to move on but I do so with a heavy heart," he says. I have loved my time with Iris, working with so many amazing, young and talented emerging artists, giving many of them their first professional jobs, but I'm looking forward to a new challenge, bringing new life to some extraordinary performance spaces at Stanley Halls. It's good to know when it's time to go, and 12 years feels like the perfect point for me. I now want to create a vibrant new space for emerging artists in south London - but my first task will be getting the buildings ready, including the toilets!"

Iris Theatre and Daniel Winder have been nominated for 12 Off West End Awards; and his 2016 production of Treasure Island won the Best Production for Young People in the 'Offies'; with both the 2017 adaptations of Hansel & Gretel and the 2018 adaptation of The Three Musketeers (both of which he wrote) being shortlisted for the same award in the two following years.

His final production for Iris was this summer's Hamlet, with a transgender actor playing the title role, which was nominated for Best Design in the 2019 Offies.

Iris will continue to be the resident company at St Paul's Church. They hope to have a creative producer in place soon to start planning their 2020 season, which promises to be better than ever.

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