Kip Williams steps down as STC reels from donor exodus

Kip Williams, Sydney Theatre Company artistic director, plans to step down as company reels from deficit crisis.

Artistic director of the Sydney Theatre Company, Kip Williams. Picture: Jane Dempster/The Australian

Kip Williams, the artistic director of Sydney Theatre Company, Australia’s largest subsidised theatre troupe, will step down at the end of 2024, he announced on Friday.

Williams is leaving the company after eight years in the top job to free up his time for a potential 2025 Broadway season of his Australian and West End cine-theatre hit The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Succession star Sarah Snook is performing all 26 characters in this solo, multimedia show in London and has earned rave reviews and an Olivier Award nomination. Williams’s production has garnered a second Olivier nod, for Marg Horwell’s costume design.

His resignation comes as the STC reels from staff redundancies and a multimillion-dollar deficit caused by pandemic-related production cancellations, and a donor exodus provoked by an onstage pro-Palestinian protest during a 2023 production of The Seagull.

It has been estimated the opening night protest by three actors who donned Palestinian scarves has cost the company $1.5m in donations and ticket sales cancelled by upset Jewish supporters.

Since then, seven staff redundancies have been announced.

Williams denied the STC’s fin­ancial crisis was a factor in his resignation. “No, absolutely not,” he told The Sydney Morning Herald. “Obviously, it’s been a difficult time for the company. For me it’s about looking at 2025 and the prospect of programming for 2026.” He was referring to how the demands of a Broadway production would not leave him enough time to plan the company’s 2026 season.

STC chair Ann Johnson said Williams, who will launch the company’s 2025 season later this year, had been an “exceptional leader’’ of the company.