FST Board

Al Seed

Al creates theatre, dance and performance installations for national and international touring. He regularly guest directs and teaches, and is also the Director of Waypoint-1, a Scotland wide mentorship programme for early career performance makers.

Anita Clark

Director

Anita has been dancing since she was 3 years old and has forged a career in dance as a practitioner, producer and in funding and policy. She is now Director of The Work Room, an artist-led organisation based in Glasgow. Her previous roles include Head of Dance at Creative Scotland, Artistic Director of City Moves in Aberdeen and Education Officer at Birmingham Royal Ballet. Anita holds an MA in Arts in Social Context from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and a BA (hons) in Dance & Related Arts from London College of Dance. She is on the board of directors of YDance and Take Me Somewhere festival and is also part of the executive committee of National Dance Network, a UK-wide network of dance development organisations.

Callum Smith

Producer

Callum Smith is a producer for the National Theatre of Scotland. Previously he has worked as a freelance producer for artists and companies including Jenna Watt, New Room Theatre, Sleeping Warrior Theatre Company, Plutôt La Vie, Strange Theatre, Enormous Yes and ran his own producing services company, Showroom. He has worked for a variety of the UK’s leading theatres and producers, including the Tron Theatre and London’s Royal Court, where he was international administrator and project managed the theatre’s international output

Emma Jayne Park

Emma is a dancer, theatre maker, collaborator, facilitator, movement director, trainee intimacy coordinator, choreographer, advocate, micro-activist and occasional drag king working under the creative handle Some Kind of Chaos. They ask questions and are obsessed with asking better questions. You can usually find them in the sea, drinking tea or dancing in sweaty clubs – often whilst simultaneously scrolling Twitter. From creating dance with rural communities to working in ‘established’ mid-scale theatres, their politics always underline their practice with a focus on narrowing the gap between ideology and actions, questioning inherited working structures and developing shareable approaches. Since 2018 their research has concentrated upon failure from both individual and societal perspectives. Emma is currently a PushProject.Eu Artist, Associate Artist with the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival and recently undertook an Associateship with Scottish Dance Theatre/ Dundee Rep supported by the Surf The Wave Seed Generator. Their facilitation practice includes working with Federation of Scottish Theatre, EPAD, Imaginate and IETM. They have also advocated for freelancers rights as a speaker in Holyrood at the Cross Party Group for Culture.

Kate Nelson

Artistic Director/Chief Executive

Kate is Artistic Director of the award-winning, independent touring company Nutshell, which she founded in 2002. In addition to directing and producing, she lectures in Drama and Performance at Queen Margaret University. Her current research is in the fields of applied dramatic discourse analysis and in the benefit of the arts to rural economies. As part of her work at Queen Margaret, she has recently been awarded an Innovation Fellowship for 2021/2022. Kate has also worked as a freelance director and participatory arts practitioner in theatres across Scotland and the rest of the U.K. She served on the board of the Independent Theatre Council for 6 years and is currently a board member of Stage Directors U.K. and is a member of the Artistic Steering Group for Cumbernauld Theatre.

Liam Sinclair

Executive Director & Joint CEO

In January 2019, Liam took up post with Dundee Rep and Scottish Dance Theatre as Executive Director & Joint CEO. Prior to this he has held the roles of Artistic Director of the Byre Theatre, Executive Producer for Scottish Dance Theatre, Artistic Director & CEO of Macrobert Arts Centre, Director of the Edinburgh Mela, and Head of YouthWorks Drama (Short Courses) for the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, of which he is a graduate. He is a co-Chair of the Board for FST, Chair of the Board for Luminate, and stood down in 2015 from serving for 8 years as Chair of Birds of Paradise Theatre Company, Scotland’s leading inclusive theatre company.

Niloo-Far Khan

Since graduating from MFA Directing at Napier under the tutelage of former Lyceum Artistic Director Mark Thomson and NTS playwright May Sumbwanyambe, my recent works include: co-devising a music and visual art piece ‘When Mountains Meet’, directing a research and development for Accelerator’s theatre piece ‘Thrown’ (by Xana Marwick/Imaginate, 2021); the short film ‘Black Scots’ (National Theatre of Scotland/BBC Scotland/Hopscotch Films, 2020); the Fringe Premier of boxing drama ‘In Her Corner’ (by Mikey Burnett/Fringe, 2019) of which I was also a dramaturg; and my other work includes assistant directing ‘Pure Freezin Panto’ (by Andy McGregor/A Play, A Pie and A Pint, 2018), ‘Hindu Times’, (by Jaimini Jethwa/The Lyceum Sound Stage, 2021), and ‘Something to Say’ Radio Plays, (Birds of Paradise/2021).

Rhona Matheson

Chief Executive

Rhona is Chief Executive of Starcatchers, Scotland’s national arts and early years organisation. Starcatchers is a leading force in producing and touring high quality theatre, dance and visual art productions for babies, toddlers, young children and their parents and carers. This work is toured to venues and communities across Scotland as well as internationally. Starcatchers also provides programmes of artist development and community engagement. Prior to joining Starcatchers, Rhona worked for a number of Scottish theatre companies including Wee Stories and 7:84 Theatre Company (Scotland).

Sam Gough

Executive Director and Joint CEO

In September 2018, Sam took up post with Tron Theatre, Glasgow as Executive Director & Joint CEO. Prior to this he held the role of General Manager and Head of Operations of Summerhall, Edinburgh. Before that Sam worked in events at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre and for more than a quarter a century worked in various producing roles within the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Sam is a director of the Scottish Theatre Producing Consortium and sat on the Board of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society for four years.

Yolanda Aguilar

Executive Director

Yolanda trained as an actor in Madrid before moving to London to study dance. Starting her professional career in community and integrated dance working with Fergus Early at Green Candle Dance and Adam Benjamin of Candoco, she performed a graduation piece as part of the Edinburgh Festivals, falling in love with the country so it was a question of time before making a move to Scotland. Here, she concentrated on facilitating dance sessions in the community, working with people of all ages and abilities before producing an international collaboration with La Fura dels Baus working alongside young performers as part of the MPower Festival at the Macrobert Arts Centre. Yolanda holds an MA in Arts, Festival, and Cultural Management from Queen Margaret University and is currently the Executive Director at Shaper/Caper. Yolanda has served on the Board of Trustees at Arts & Business Scotland from 2018-2021.