Lu Kemp

Lu is a theatre director and dramaturg with a distinctive reputation for her work in new writing. Lu is Associate Artist with the internationally renowned company Inspector Sands, for whom she created and directed The Lounge, Mass Observation (Almeida), and If That’s All There Is (which won the Edinburgh International Festival Fringe Award 2009). Lu was Artistic Director of Perth Theatre (Scotland) between 2016 to 2023; her tenure was notable for building a strong body of new work by Scottish artists and community engaged productions including new adaptations of Don Quixote, Don Juan, The Importance of Being Earnest, Kes and Richard III; new writing The Man in the Submarine, I Am Tiger, Oh When the Saints (created with St. Johnstone FC), Six Inches of Top Soil and the Fact it Rains (created with local farmers) and new versions of Scottish classics like Harrower’s Knives in Hens.

As a freelance director her work she has worked for The Citizens, The Royal Lyceum Theatre, The National Theatre of Scotland, Artangel, The Tricycle, Almeida and The Royal Shakespeare Company. Lu has worked as a dramaturg for both theatre and dance companies including Dance Xchange Birmingham, Rambert, Sadler’s Wells and The Place in the UK, and de Stilte Dance in the Netherlands. Lu was a BBC Radio Drama producer at BBC Scotland between 2002 to 2007, and has subsequently freelanced for them as an adaptor, abridger and director of radio plays and readings. She has taught writing for radio for the BBC and Arvon. In April 2003 she created the second series of Earwig with sound-designer Danny Krass, a fiction podcast written by 6 Scottish writers (led by Oliver Emanuel). Lu began her career as the Scottish Arts Council Trainee Theatre Director at TAG, Citizens Theatre. She later trained on the LEM at Lecoq, Paris, and with Anne Bogart’s SITI Company, New York.