Double act brings down curtain on Almeida years

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The two-man team that has made London's Almeida theatre one of the most successful, fashionable and starry venues in the country is to step down.

Jonathan Kent and Ian McDiarmid will formally announce their resignation as joint artistic directors today. It will come as a shock to the theatre world as the Almeida is currently being rebuilt, offering the pair even greater potential with better facilities for performers and audiences.

Speculation is already linking them with the post of artistic director of the National Theatre, which becomes vacant when Trevor Nunn departs next year. Both would undoubtedly make it on to the shortlist but neither has so far expressed an interest.

Kent and McDiarmid say that by next summer, when they formally step down, they will have served 12 consecutive years at the theatre and it is simply time to move on.

In those dozen years they have dramatically improved the theatre's fortunes, turning the small venue in Islington, north London, from a receiving house putting on outside productions to an internationally-lauded producing house, with shows transferring regularly to the West End and to Broadway. Its reputation is such that in recent years it has lured stars of the calibre of Diana Rigg, Paul Scofield, Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche, and mounted premières by Harold Pinter, David Hare and Edward Albee.

Stars would pack the audience at an Almeida first night as the venue became a byword for chic. Kent and McDiarmid even had two plays by the French dramatist Racine running in the West End. They have created new performance spaces in London: the Gainsborough Studios in Shoreditch, and the Almeida's current temporary home – a former coach station in King's Cross. They have also mounted 10 contemporary opera festivals.

Since 1990 the Almeida has received more than 45 theatre awards, including a Laurence Olivier Award and an Evening Standard Award, both for Outstanding Achievement.

Both men have directed many productions at the Almeida as well as administering it. McDiarmid has also starred in movies, including Return of the Jedi and Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace .

In a statement last night, Kent and McDiarmid said: "We have been the Almeida's artistic directors since 1990. An inherent truth in any artistic pursuit of this nature is that it cannot last forever.

"To have created, along with many others, a theatre of vision and commitment has been entirely rewarding, but we believe now is the time to go."