Richard Cheshire

I’m a Senior Lecturer in Acting and Directing here at Staffordshire University, Course Leader for our innovative and new MA in Collaborative Theatre Practice and Academic Link Tutor for the BA (Hons) in Musical Theatre for the Wilkes Academy and Staffordshire University partnership.

After being Curriculum Leader for Drama, Performance and Scenography and Director of Learning and Teaching at the Department of Theatre, Film and Television at Aberystwyth University, I was appointed to join the dynamic Performing Arts team here at Staffordshire University six years ago.
I balance my work at Staffordshire University with that of being a freelance theatre director. Recent Professional Theatre work and engagement includes:

2019: I directed Lionel Bart’s Oliver! At Aberystwyth Arts Centre for their Summer Season production.

2018/19: For Sell A Door Worldwide – I directed Aladdin at the Broadway Theatre Catford, London.
2017/18: For PHA directed Aladdin at the Marina Theatre Lowestoft, starring Anne Widdicombe and Mark Reid; and Peter Pan at the Pomegranate Theatre, Chesterfield starring Sam Attwater and Kelli Young.
2016/17: For PHA directed and co-wrote Peter Pan for the Pavilion Theatre Worthing, starring Richard McCourt, Amelia lily, Patrick Monahan and Lloyd Daniels and wrote and directed Beauty and the Beast at the Marina Theatre Lowestoft starring Jeremy Edwards.
2015/16: For PHA I directed Snow White at the Pomegranate Theatre, Chesterfield starring Jonathan Ansell, Nicki French and Philip Green; and Sleeping Beauty at the Marina Theatre Lowestoft, starring Rusty Lee, Asa Elliot and John Lyons.
2014/15: For PHA I directed Cinderella at the Pomegranate Theatre, Chesterfield starring Camilla Dallerup and Asa Elliot.
2013/14: For Imagine Theatre I played Sarah the Cook in Dick Whittington at the Victoria Theatre Halifax, directed by Rob Marsden.

I also devise/direct and play Dame for the famous Wardens pantomimes at the internationally acclaimed Arts Centre in Aberystwyth and regularly write and direct the pantomimes for Reveal Theatre Company / Sunshine Productions at the Rose Theatre Rugeley. As an Associate Director at the Royal Theatre Northampton, I directed Congreve’s The Way of the World, John Godber’s Teechers, Langford Wilson’s Talley’s Folly and Phil Young’s Crystal Clear. As an Associate Director of Aberystwyth Arts Centre, I was instrumental in establishing and developing their renowned professional summer seasons. Productions included Godspell, (with Michael Ball), Annie, Singing in the Rain, Oklahoma, South Pacific, Oliver, Me and My Girl, Crazy for You and The King and I. I played Max in The Sound of Music, the cowardly lion in The Wizard of Oz, Cornel Pickering in My Fair Lady and Billis in South Pacific. I was also director of the Arts Centre’s annual School Shakespeare Project, directing in-house and touring productions of The Tempest, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, The Merchant of Venice, Cymbeline, Pericles, Twelfth Night and A Midsummer Night’s Dream and many community theatre productions including Amadeus, Nicholas Nickleby, Rape of the Fair Country, Another Country and She Stoops to Conquer.

In 2000 I was invited to be an Adjunct Professor at Wesleyan College Virginia (USA) where I directed the USA premier of Clare Luckham and George Stiles’s  musical Moll Flanders.