Diverse trio promise innovative combination at reborn theatre

The Chichester Festival Theatre, one of Britain's best-loved regional venues, is to be run by an intriguing troika, it was announced yesterday.

Steven Pimlott, who directed the current West End hit musical Bombay Dreams and was an associate director at the Royal Shakespeare Company, is to take the helm with Ruth Mackenzie and Martin Duncan.

Mr Duncan is best known as a creator of the comic group the National Theatre of Brent. Ms Mackenzie was until recently an adviser at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, and previously ran Scottish Opera. They start work on a three-year plan next month and will take over its running in November, provided that funding bodies accept their proposals.

The funders' backing is required because the theatre, although now in good financial health, faced bankruptcy in 1997. Andrew Welch, the director who took over five years ago and saved the theatre, said he was delighted the new team was taking over. "We look forward to exciting and innovative festival seasons," he said.

The Chichester Festival Theatre was founded by Sir Laurence Olivier in 1962 and offered Sam Mendes, the Oscar-winning director, his first big break. It has a good, though unashamedly middle-class, reputation and regularly attracts stars. The trio's CVs embrace a mix of international performance and opera as well as work in British theatre.

Mr Duncan and Ms Mackenzie have worked with figures such as the avant-garde directors Luc Bondy and Robert Lepage. But Mr Duncan has also directed more mainstream fare such as the D'Oyly Carte company's HMS Pinafore while Mr Pimlott has worked on Andrew Lloyd Webber's Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat as well as Hamlet.

The three are old friends who recently set up their own production company. Mr Pimlott and Ms Duncan were both associate directors of the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield. Ms Mackenzie was executive director of the Nottingham Playhouse when Mr Duncan was its artistic director, and Mr Pimlott often directed for them.

Their job will be easier than Andrew Welch's. He inherited a £600,000 deficit but persuaded the Arts Council to give the theatre a subsidy. He also created a more varied repertoire than in previous years, including the first regional production of The Blue Room, the David Hare play made famous by Nicole Kidman.