Sita McIntosh appointed chair of the board of trustees at Curve in Leicester

Sita McIntosh has been appointed chair of the board of trustees at Curve in Leicester.

Having been a trustee at the venue since 2018, McIntosh, formerly the COO of WhatsOnStage, will succeed the current chair Ian Squires.

McIntosh said today: “Having joined the board at Curve almost four years ago and being part of the team through some exceptionally challenging times since then, I am thrilled and honoured to have been appointed Chair. I’m very excited to step into the enormous shoes left by Ian Squires and build on Curve’s extraordinary work and reputation already established by Chris and Nikolai.”

McIntosh ran WhatsOnStage for over seven years between 2014 and 2021, and co-produced the annual WhatsOnStage Awards, the largest publicly voted theatre awards in the UK.

She recently established Inclusive Audiences, an initiative committed to audience  development  and  diversification, and sits as chair of the board of the Kiln Theatre, and as a trustee as HOME in Manchester.

Squires said: “It has been an enormous privilege to lead Curve as the chairman of its board for these last six years. We have a fine, talented and committed team that have produced the most extraordinary results. Who thought we could do better than West Side Story in 2019? Or top last year’s newspaper response to A Chorus Line – ‘Leicester: officially the home of world class theatre’? And now they’ have, they’ve done it again with a musical Billy Elliot beyond compare.

“But if life was all five-star reviews there’d be nothing to challenge us and challenges there have been (Covid-19 – I’m talking about you here) as well as the twists and turns that come upon the life of any theatre. Happily, with a united and clear-thinking board, smart management and brilliant creative skill we have come through. Curve is well-placed to fulfil its promise of becoming a theatre with a sustained national and international reputation based in a great regional city.

“Partings like these are always of ‘such sweet sorrow’ but I leave with the hugely experienced Sita McIntosh succeeding me, a refreshed and energetic board in place and the supremely gifted Chris Stafford and Nikolai Foster on the bridge. My thanks to all with whom I have shared the last half -dozen years. Take good care of the place and, above all, enjoy it.”