Meet the Team

David Lan trained as an actor in Cape Town and as a social anthropologist at LSE. He was writer in residence at the Royal Court 1995/7. His plays include Flight (RSC), Desire (Almeida), The Ends of the Earth (NT), opera libretti Tobias and the Angel (Almeida) and Ion (Aldeburgh) and English versions of Chekhov, Euripides, Verga and others. Publications include an ethnography Guns and Rain, a volume of plays and a memoir As if by Chance.  As artistic director/CEO of the Young Vic 2000/18 he led the rebuild of the theatre (RIBA London Building of the Year) and the simultaneous 24 show/31 city season, transferred many shows to the West End and Broadway, produced international festivals, co-founded the What Next? Movement and received multiple Olivier, Tony, South Bank Show, Critics Circle awards. He was consulting artistic director to the PAC/NY 2014/16 and theatre associate at BAM 2019/21. He is co-producer of the global journeys of Little Amal in support of refugees (2021/present, recipient of the RSGS Livingstone Medal) and of The Herds. His play The Land of the Living opened at the National Theatre in the autumn of 2025.