Professor Antony Field

Anthony Field’s career in the theatre started after having qualified and gained experience as a Chartered Accountant, when in 1957 he ran London’s Comedy Theatre as the New Watergate Theatre Club so that productions then banned by the Lord Chamberlain (such as Tea and Sympathy, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and A View From the Bridge) could be presented to English audiences. This was a pioneering move in securing the abolition of stage censorship which occurred within a few years of launching the Club.

After nearly thirty years as Finance Director of the Arts Council of Great Britain (during which time his budget responsibility rose from under £1 million to over £300 million), Anthony became Vice-President of Theatre Projects Consultants when, together with Richard Pilbrow, he launched the first London productions of shows including Company, A Little Night Music, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and I’m Not Rappaport.

Anthony pioneered the very first University-level training courses for Arts Administrators and Managers (at the City University in London) in the late 1960s, and also lectured at Harvard University Business School for over a decade. Whilst at the Arts Council he established the Theatre Investment Fund (now called Stage One) and launched the West End half-price ticket booth in Leicester Square, which the Society of London Theatre now run as TKTS.

He was a Trustee of the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA) , of which he was Chair from its inception, and was the Chair of the Theatre Projects Trust. He has also been Chair of the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith and launched the European extension of Henry Kissinger’s International Rescue Committee charity. He has served as a Trustee of the Mander and Mitchenson Theatre Collection, and served on the Boards of many theatres including the Royal Opera House and the National Theatre, and on the boards of many performing arts schools including Drama Centre London . He was a long-standing member of the International Society of the Performing Arts (ISPA) and was a founding member, director and Chair of Arts Interlink. He was the recipient of numerous awards and honours including the ISPA International Citation of Merit Award in 2011 and the CBE in 1984.

Much in demand as a consultant, he also heads Anthony Field Associates, a London based group which consults, produces and invests in the arts and entertainment industry across the globe. He was a regular contributor to “The Stage” and other newspapers: a compilation of his articles and lectures has recently been published under the title “Pages From Stages”. He was a member of the Garrick Club.