Amy Leach will join West Yorkshire Playhouse as its new Associate Director from March 2017.
Amy has a long standing relationship with the Playhouse and directed Kes in the Courtyard Theatre in 2016, which then went on a community tour of the city to non-theatre venues, as well as The Night Before Christmas and Little Sure Shot in 2015.
Amy is currently directing a major production of Romeo and Juliet in the Quarry Theatre at the Playhouse which opens on Friday 3 March, running until Saturday 25 March.
West Yorkshire Playhouse’s Artistic Director James Brining said: "Amy Leach has already created a series of brilliant shows for audiences in Leeds both at the Playhouse and on tour.
She has an excellent track record of creating acclaimed and accessible, powerful productions and she will be a huge asset to the Playhouse as we enter the next chapter of our exciting history."
Amy Leach said: “I am absolutely delighted to be joining the Playhouse – a theatre which I have loved for over 20 years. It is a fantastic organisation with wonderful audiences, and I look forward to joining James Brining and Robin Hawkes and their brilliant team to tell incredible stories, with and for the communities of Leeds and Yorkshire in the coming years.” 
Amy grew up in Darwen, Lancashire and studied English at Durham University. Amy co-founded the award winning theatre company for young people, en masse, and her recent directing credits include: The Borrowers for the Sherman Theatre, Cardiff; Wonderman for National Theatre Wales, Wales Millennium Centre & Gagglebabble; The Caucasian Chalk Circle for The Unicorn, London.
West Yorkshire Playhouse has a reputation both nationally and internationally as a leading UK producing theatre. The theatre is a cultural hub, a place where people gather to tell and share stories and to engage in world class theatre. From large scale spectacle to intimate performance the Playhouse develops and makes work for the stage, for found spaces, for touring, for schools and community venues. Alongside work for the stage the Playhouse is dedicated to providing creative engagement opportunities, building and running sustainable projects that reach out to a diverse range of communities. Supporting new and emerging artists is key and the theatre provides creative space for new writers, directors and individual theatre makers to refine their practice.
The Playhouse’s Spring/Summer 2017 Season includes Pygmalion, a radical new staging of Bernard Shaw’s classic, directed by Sam Pritchard and coproduced with Headlong and Nuffield Southampton Theatres. Romeo and Juliet, a fresh new staging capturing the impact of raging intergenerational conflict and social unrest in a sharply resonant present-day setting directed by Amy Leach. The Graduate, a new stylish co-production with Curve in association with Simon Friend and Gavin Kalin Productions, directed by Lucy Bailey. Lifeboat by Catherine Wheel’s Theatre Company which visits community venues across Leeds following its Playhouse staging; a powerful contemporary staging of The Grapes of Wrath directed by Abbey Wright and co-produced with Nuffield Southampton Theatres, Nottingham Playhouse and Royal & Derngate Northampton. Ode to Leeds directed by West Yorkshire Playhouse’s Artistic Director, James Brining. A new play by Zodwa Nyoni inspired by the story of the city’s renowned spoken word poetry group Leeds Young Authors. Barber Shop Chronicles written by Inua Ellams invites audiences into the barber’s chair across Africa and the UK, in a co-production with National Theatre and Fuel directed by Bijan Sheibani.
