Emily Gray

emilygray@bymt.org

She/her

Location: Leeds

Hours: Monday-Friday 9:30am-5:30pm

Emily began her role as Chief Executive and Creative Director at British Youth Music Theatre in May 2022 and since then has overseen more than 20 wonderful productions including When We Strike (2024), Breadboy (2023) and The Naughty Carriage On The Orphan Train (2023) which she also directed.

Emily’s role is the heart and soul behind BYMT. She has all the final creative decisions on which projects we commission, she meets with funders to discuss opportunities to support the company, has overall responsibility for the wellbeing and creative development of our young people and artists and is always on hand to help out at every show and camp throughout the year (and that’s just scratching the surface)!

She works closely with all the BYMT Core Team, but also with our Board, our Creative Teams and our Young Company too.

Emily has been a theatre director for over 30 years and has always loved creating new shows and adaptations. She has worked continually in schools, training drama & music teachers, creating new projects and delivering workshops.

Prior to working for BYMT, Emily was Executive Director of Mercury Musical Developments, an organisation for writers of new musicals, where she helped to diversify and develop the membership, supporting many writers of new shows.

From 2004-2019, Emily was Artistic Director and Chief Executive of Trestle Theatre Company and before this worked at Unicorn Theatre, Nottingham Playhouse, West Yorkshire Playhouse and Polka Theatre.

Emily has been a theatre lover her whole life. Upon leaving school, she initially didn’t get into drama school as a performer, so she decided to study religion at Cambridge University - but her passion for theatre remained strong and after graduating she went on to study at The Royal Central School of Speech & Drama and trained as a director.