Indhu Rubasingham’s National Theatre in-tray: lure megastars, deal with crises and define an era

The incoming artistic director at the NT must lead the institution and the industry, while choosing plays new and old for three stages. The job is a test of nerve and integrity

In 1978, Julia Pascal became the first woman to direct a performance at the National Theatre in London. It caused some press attention. Peter Hall, the artistic director, confided to his diary: “goodness, women directors can direct, just as birds can sing”.

Hall may have sounded bemused, but it was a further three years before a woman would direct a full production at his theatre (Nancy Meckler with Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?), and a further 42 years before the National managed to appoint a woman to lead the organisation itself. Indhu Rubasingham will become the National’s seventh artistic director (following Laurence Olivier, Hall, Richard Eyre, Trevor Nunn, Nicholas Hytner and Rufus Norris) and the first woman, and the first person of colour, in the role.