After 17 years at the helm, Andrew Bentley BEM, the founding chief executive of Storyhouse Chester, is stepping down.
During his time there, Storyhouse has evolved into a significant and innovative regional cultural charity that runs one of the country’s most successful arts buildings, with more than a million visits a year, as well as being a theatre producer and running the highly-successful Grosvenor Park Open-Air Theatre, which Andrew co-created in 2010 . Andrew received a BEM in the Queen’s 2020 Birthday Honours for services to Arts and Libraries.
He said: ‘It's been an enormous privilege to lead such an amazing organisation, but after a 17-year journey with the charity I am ready to make a change.
"With my previous artistic director Alex Clifton and the team we managed to build and create a true community space, and it is this I am most proud of. "In any year well over 1,000 individuals – communities, artists, practitioners - are involved in making work that accounts for over half of our turnover. We have empowered young people with industry-leading youth leadership, with meaningful influence and direct control over programmes, production, and governance. We manage resources to empower those least likely to feel they belong.
"I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all the team at Storyhouse for giving me one of the best working experiences of my life."