Daniel King Announced as Icon Theatre's New Executive Director

Daniel King has been announced as the new Executive Director at Icon, a leading theatre company based at The Brook Theatre in Medway who are known for their work with communities across north and east Kent.

Icon bring together professional theatre artists and local communities to create large-scale, immersive, and site-specific performances, exploring the issues and stories that influence their lives. Most recently, The Chatham Witch explored the extraordinary history of women in Medway and featured 150 actors, dancers, and singers from the local community.

Icon also leads Medway and Sheppey's flagship young people's theatre programme Theatre31. Led by young people for young people, it is one of five Arts Council funded Youth Performance Partnerships in the country.

Additionally, Icon runs mental health programmes, weekly classes in local community centres and issue-based workshops on housing estates, schools, and drop-in centres. Icon often works with people who have experienced significant socio-economic disadvantage and exclusion, including life in care, having experience of the criminal justice system, or holding refugee or asylum seeker status. Many of the young people Icon work with are at risk of educational exclusion, some have already been excluded and many remain not in education, employment, or training.

Daniel has previously worked at international dance house Sadler's Wells leading the marketing for their Producing and Touring department, National Youth Dance Company and Breakin' Convention. Before that, he was interim Executive Director at Camden People's Theatre, and between 2015-18 ran a marketing and communications project management business with clients including Roundhouse, Donmar Warehouse, Dance to Health, Battersea Arts Centre, Soho Theatre and Dartington Hall amongst others.

He was part of the original team for Fun Palaces, a national campaign for cultural democracy, leading their marketing and communications strategy until 2021. He has held other roles at Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Albany and DreamWorks and is a trustee of Applause Rural Touring. He trained in theatre at Central School of Speech and Drama and studied Education at University of Cambridge.

Daniel comments, I'm delighted to be joining Icon at this exciting time of growth and development for the company. What drew me to Icon is their commitment to creating high-quality and transformative theatre and arts opportunities for the diverse communities in Medway, from co-creating large-scale immersive theatre productions with professional theatre-makers and local people, to the work they do leading Theatre 31, inspiring thousands of local young people. I'm looking forward to collaborating with artists and partners in Medway and beyond to develop opportunities.

Founder and Artistic Director Nancy Hirst comments, Icon Theatre is delighted to welcome Daniel King as our new Executive Director at this exciting time. He brings a huge amount of skills and experience to the organisation and we're really looking forward to working with him to engage more communities than ever before.

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