The Progress 1000: London's most influential people 2019 – Creative Arts: Theatre

Director
It is a testament to the charisma of the vegan, heavily-tattooed 38-year-old Lloyd that he lured so many stars, and such impressive audiences, to his Pinter at the Pinter season in the West End. He’s run his own company since 2013.

Playwright
What’s the French for wunderkind? The Paris-based Prix Goncourt alumnus, 39, has quietly become London’s most popular playwright, with challenging, compelling dramas The Height of the Storm, The Father, The Mother and this year’s staging of The Son, which moved from the Kiln to the Duke of York’s.

Artistic director, Hampstead Theatre | NEW
Born in Argentina in 1964, Silbert had an early job reading scripts for the Hampstead Theatre — this September she finally took over there as artistic director, having worked at the Royal Court, RSC, Paines Plough and Birmingham Rep. Her intriguing first season includes plays by Francis Ya-Chu Cowhig, Jordan Tannahill and Tom Morton-Smith.

Actor | NEW
The author of Josephine and Me, star of the Good Wife and OBE recipient, London-born Jumbo, 33, will play Hamlet at the Young Vic in 2020.

Actor, writer, artistic director, Young Vic
Hillingdon-born Kwei-Armah, 52 — one of the nicest men in London theatre — has built on David Lan’s strong legacy to make the Young Vic a place of thrilling action and experiment: Death of a Salesman and The Convert were palpable hits, and his troubled collaboration with Idris Elba, Tree, won over critics. Coming soon: Cush Jumbo’s Hamlet, and a new version of Blood Wedding.

Actor
A riveting presence on screen — and yet another Brit co-opted into the Marvel universe — but London-born Atwell, 37, also regularly throws her talent and her clout behind challenging stage work, following a #Metoo Measure for Measure at the Donmar with a searing Rebecca West in Ibsen’s Rosmersholm opposite Tom Burke.

Writer
Hickson’s plays provoke heated debate, but always have something radical and challenging to offer: after unpacking power and gender structures in The Writer at the Almeida, the Surrey-born 34-year-old experimented with sound design and explored the interior of her main character’s head in Anna at the National.

Artistic director and joint chief executives, National Theatre
He had a hit with Small Island and in his fifth year as artistic director of the National, 54-year-old Norris — alongside joint chief executive Burger — has programmed an enticing, wide-ranging season including new plays by Lucy Kirkwood, Moira Buffini and comedian Francesca Martinez, plus collaborations between Clint Dyer/Roy Williams and Richard Bean/Oliver Chris.

Producer and theatre owner
The 72-year-old Enfield-born uber-producer who started as a stagehand owns eight West End theatres, will shortly introduce a new staging of Mary Poppins to a roster that includes Cats, Phantom and Les Mis, and was given the Lebedev Award at the 2018 Evening Standard Awards for services to theatre.

Director
Everybody’s favourite iconoclast, Icke, 32, rebuilds classic plays from the ground up, chiefly at the Almeida, where he was an associate director to Rupert Goold for six years. His Oresteia, his Uncle Vanya and his Wild Duck were revelatory: the last production of his Almeida tenure was an adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler.

Artistic director, Donmar Warehouse
After his shattering revival of Caroline, or Change transferred from Hampstead to the West End, Bromley-born 38-year-old Longhurst kicked off his tenure at the Donmar with a timely revival of David Greig’s Europe: his first season also embraced new plays from Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Alice Birch and a comic riff on Richard III, Teenage Dick.

Producer
If a straight play or a musical has cred and critical kudos on Broadway or in the West End, chances are that 54-year-old Londoner Friedman was involved. Rosmersholm, All About Eve, The Inheritance, The Book of Mormon and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child are or were part of her company’s stable: let’s hope her New York production of Mean Girls the musical comes to London soon.

Producer and theatre owner
With her American partner Max Weitzenhoffer, London stalwart Burns, 64, runs six West End theatres and continues to operate as an adventurous producer: she helped facilitate the London premiere of David Mamet’s Bitter Wheat, the transfer of the Globe’s all-female Emilia, and backed the exuberant musical Everybody’s Talking About Jamie.

Theatre owners
Theatre’s most powerful husband-and-wife team (aged 70 and 63 respectively) are no longer in charge of the massive Ambassador Theatre Group they founded and its stock of London theatres, but they retain shares in the company and are building a new empire balancing producing and screenings of live performances with ownership of theatres, cinemas and stage schools through their Trafalgar Entertainment brand.

Artistic director, Old Vic
In five years of running the Old Vic, the preternaturally youthful, Kent-born Warchus, 50, has redeemed it from the shadow cast by his predecessor Kevin Spacey, although the hits (Present Laughter, All My Sons, Fanny and Alexander) have been balanced with misses (Mood Music, anyone?). This summer, he lured Daniel Radcliffe to appear in Beckett, and mounted a stage adaptation of the cult classic Local Hero, with music by Mark Knopfler.

Actor
No one but Smith could have invested A German Life at the Bridge — a seated, two-hour monologue about collusion with fascism — with such slippery nuance, pathos, and even wit. A triumphant return to the stage after 12 years for one of our greatest theatrical talents, during which she gained new fans in Downton Abbey and Harry Potter. But don’t you dare call her a national treasure: imagine the look she’d give you.

Actor
He’s done Shakespeare, panto, Tolkien, X Men and Coronation Street, been a campaigner for LGBT rights and became a minister to officiate at his friend Patrick Stewart’s wedding. And to celebrate his 80th birthday he performed a fund-raising one-man show in more than 80 venues across the country, which in turn led to a West End run, also for charity. Sir Ian — or Serena as he likes to be called — we salute you.

Co-founders, Bridge Theatre
Two years after they opened the first Bridge Theatre by City Hall, former NT artistic director Hytner, 63, and his producing partner Starr are preparing to build a second, 600-seat venue in King’s Cross, scheduled to open in 2021. At the original Bridge, one-woman shows from Laura Linney and Dame Maggie Smith, and a delirious Dream, compensated for some early disappointments, and the post-show madeleines still smell divine.

Artistic director, Royal Court
In her six years at the helm of the Sloane Square institution, Surrey-born Featherstone, 52, has continued to question and reinvent the role of a new writing theatre. This has produced scabrous recent hits like Cyprus Avenue and White Pearl; from September, a season entitled A Year of Work will include scripts by the diverse likes of Caryl Churchill, Tim Crouch, EV Crowe, Sabrina Mahfouz and Debris Stephenson.

Composer, producer and theatre owner
The man behind Cats, Phantom, Joseph, School of Rock and many classics, Kensington-born Lloyd Webber, 71, owns six West End theatres and tries out new musical talent in his seventh venue, The Other Palace. Presented with the Lebedev Award at the 2013 Evening Standard Theatre Awards, he has done as much as anyone to shape theatreland.

Actor
London-born Okonedo won best female actor at the Evening Standard Theatre Awards last year for her performance in Antony and Cleopatra alongside Ralph Fiennes, who won best actor. This year, the 51-year-old starred in the hit indie movie Wild Rose with Jessie Buckley and Julie Walters and was given a CBE in the 2019 New Year Honours.

The Progress 1000, in partnership with the global bank Citi, is the Evening Standard’s celebration of the people changing London’s future for the better. #Progress1000