Anthony Simpson-Pike’s first season as Artistic Director at Theatre503 opens in February with  Donbas, which he is directing himself. So, where has Anthony found the inspiration, how far is he looking to his own experiences, and how far is he reaching out to the wider world?

Anthony is working alongside Executive Director, Emily Carewe, giving them a shared responsibility. The first change that the pair have made is that they are now producing and co-producing all five productions in the season (rather than one or two as in the past). Anthony is quite aghast at the suggestion that he might be directing all five. “I definitely don’t have the energy for that” he laughs. They are also now investing financially rather than just ‘in-kind’ in co-productions (including Donbas with Good Chance and 45North Production in association with Seventh Productions) and they are taking work beyond its London home (Boo with Theatre Royal Plymouth). Then, the venue is launching a new strand celebrating the power of the debut through, for the first time ever, reviving a debut that reshaped the theatre landscape -  Michaela Coel’s  Chewing Gum Dreams, which opens in September 2026 and is directed by Anthony.

One of the exciting things about the new season for Anthony is how “outward looking it is.” He wants Theatre503 to be “a place where people really take the risks that they can’t take anywhere else”. The season (which runs all the way until early 2027) features plays by writers from the UK, USA, Ukraine, and Palestine. Choosing plays from war zones really makes a statement. “It’s the duty of an artist to reflect the times,” says Anthony. “Especially in times like this when theatres can platform voices that are being marginalised or silenced, we should lean into that when we can.” Anthony has a belief in the importance of community. “The whole idea of theatre is that we all come to listen to a story in community with each other, and we agree to learn something new about the world.” If we talk about the world ‘”as it is”, then it might be possible to talk about the world “as it should be.” 

Anthony is quietly spoken with a measured pace (really helpful for interviewers). He’s wearing a large silver cross which seems to be making a statement about the man himself. It’s a gift from his Godfather which he describes as a “sentimental piece of jewellery”. Anthony was raised in a Quaker school. Rejecting the hierarchical nature of Catholicism, the Quakers believe that no one person is closer to God than another. They worship in the round and in silence. “Instead of listening to someone talk about God, you use the time to reflect on the God within yourself.” (It sounds like my kind of religion.) 

The first play in the season under the new creative leadership, of Emily and Anthony, is Donbas by Olga Braga  which won the 2025 Theatre503 International Playwriting Award (chosen from 1,463 writers who submitted their plays). The winner is guaranteed a production at Theatre503 but Anthony was not obliged to direct it. So, what attracted him to Olga’s play? “Olga is Ukrainian but she now lives in London and what she’s written is so brave and funny and sensitive,” says Anthony.

“We read about Ukraine, and Donbas is in the news a lot; but it’s sort of in danger of becoming just a headline for people” suggests Anthony. “What Olga’s done is gone right to the heart of what it means to be alive, and what it means to be alive not only in Donbas.” Anthony suggests that it reflects “a state of the world” and that the play is really about community. “How they get up every day and how they make coffee, or tea, and the jokes that they’re making and the friendships that are forming and the bonds that are breaking and what it means to be a father and a son.” Olga has managed to do this on “a structural level” with all the “complexities and the conflicts that are happening” and also to “zoom in on relationships”. 

“It’s so darkly funny, witty and beautiful and moving.” The play shows how communities survive in the most extreme times, and Anthony believes that “there are so many lessons to be drawn from that, but there’s also such beauty in the play about resilience of love and the resilience of community.” At the same time Anthony is aware of the ruptures that are happening in Donbas, a region which has a rich cultural identity. “There are so many competing perspectives on what the future should look like, and Olga has included lots of those as well as asking some of the big questions about how we see ourselves and what it means to see yourself as different from someone else and the consequences of that”.

The play begins with Donbas under occupation, before the full scale invasion. Anthony has an idea of how it should look, using domestic objects, to also build a battlefield. “All the things people are used to, that feel normal, that feel safe, but have been completely overturned.” The house is to be a metaphor for Donbas. The cast of six includes Ukrainian actors Sasha Syzonenko and Ksenia Devriendt. Anthony couldn’t commit himself beyond that as he’s coming into the rehearsal room with his ideas and then working collaboratively with the actors and creatives.

Coming to the pub theatre question, straight away he’s keen to point out that he was Associate Director at the Gate Theatre (before his time as Deputy Artistic Director at The Yard Theatre).  The Gate was the first theatre at The Latchmere pub, and then Theatre503 branched off to do its own thing. “There’s something full circle about that,” says Anthony.  He loves the internationalism of The Gate and this marries well with Theatre503’s outlooking gaze. He learned a lot about new writing and what it offers in terms of “new perspectives, new forms, new ways of thinking … we can also do this with existing pieces but there can be something very responsive and fresh.” He’s keen to include communities that haven’t seen themselves represented. “To me, all of those things have always been at the heart of the mission of Theatre503.”

“Theatre503 has always been telling stories that I haven’t heard before in ways that I haven’t seen before.” It concerns him that recent reports suggest that new writing is in crisis following a drop in Arts Funding. The Writers Guild of Great Britain (WGGB) warns that it poses a threat to new playwriting commissions and could lead to risk-averse programming. The survey found that 55% of writers reported that rising energy and food costs were impacting their ability to sustain a writing career.   This, in turn, has led to a decline in the number of new writing projects being developed. Statistics show that there has been a drop in the number of new writing plays being mounted since the pandemic, with new plays produced in 2023 at 29.2% lower than in 2019. Anthony is keen to be part of the mission “to fix it, to make it stronger, to secure it for future generations.”

Thanks to the resilience of Theatre503, the team have found a way to navigate an unsteady funding landscape - diversifying their production funding and relieving pressure on their reliance on Arts Council project grants. “We have to be really innovative in thinking about new funding models,”  says Anthony. Coming back to that question about pub theatres and how he feels about them, Anthony says “pub theatres are really democratic.” 

“I started in pub theatre at The Gate, and I’ve always been really inspired by the fact that there is always a theatre in a room above, in which there’s a completely new universe each time, and many people go into the pub and don’t necessarily visit the theatre, but they sometimes do. All sorts of people that wouldn’t normally go into a theatre come into contact with the space. I think that’s beautifully democratic.”