Improbable has announced that Matilda Leyser has stepped into the role of Co-Artistic Director, joining long-time Artistic Directors Phelim McDermott and Lee Simpson. This marks a new chapter for the company as it embraces a trio of leadership that reflects its values of improvisation, collaboration, and openness.
Matilda brings extensive experience as a writer, aerialist, theatre-maker, mother, and Open Space facilitator. Having worked with Improbable for over a decade and served as Associate Director, she has been integral to the company’s evolution.
Most recently, Matilda led The Gathering – Improbable’s search for a home – and the in-house programme M/Others Who Make. She will begin her tenure by leading a series of movement workshops, Improbable Moves, for all ages in Sevenoaks.
Her appointment also marks a milestone as the first woman in the company’s history to take on the Artistic Director title.
In a blog about becoming Co-Artistic Director, Matilda said:
“We have been discussing this as if it is not much of a change, as if I have been, essentially, doing the job already and the change in title is something of a formality. But I do not think this is the case. I think it’s a big deal. Radical and surprising. Because being alone still feels more familiar. Because Phelim and Lee have been working together for years, and I have looked up to them as my cool big brothers, with whom I could never catch up. So, it feels truly improbable, as in extremely unlikely, and yet rather wonderful that I – a lonely tomboy poet, turned aerialist – should end up in this company. I feel proud and immensely fortunate to be the first woman leading it as an Artistic Director – many brilliant women have supported and lead it in other roles already, but not this one. I can’t know how things will unfold, which is genuinely interesting: it may still be weird, or wild, but it won’t be lonely.”
Improbable is a world leader in improvisational and emergent practice and has created some of the most acclaimed and ground-breaking theatre and opera over the last 25 years. Recent collaborations include My Neighbour Totoro with the Royal Shakespeare Company and Barbican, The Hours at the Metropolitan Opera, and Akhnaten at English National Opera.
More information can be found here.
