John Martin

Producer – Director

John’s vison and passion is to present the best of Broadway and the West End to audiences. He believes in the transformative power of theatre in all it’s forms and has produced and directed plays and musicals that have enabled young people to work with theatre professionals and to appear in full scale productions. These have included The History Boys, Annie, Oliver!, High School Musical and High School Musical 2.

At Trinity, he has produced professional productions of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (Regional Premiere), Leading Ladies (UK Professional Premiere), By Jeeves, Boeing Boeing, Monty Python’s Spamalot, One Man, Two Guvnors, and The Producers.

For Trinity, he has produced and directed all their Christmas shows whilst he was their Artistic Director ( see below) Here he continued his ethos of involving young people in these productions to give them a unique experience of working in a professional environment.

He also produced and directed what was Tunbridge Well’s first site specific and immersive play – the international hit Terror – which was also his first production as an independent Producer.

John - Artistic Director

For 10 years from 2009 to 2019 John was Artistic Director of Trinity Theatre in Tunbridge Wells and he was instrumental in taking the organisation from the point of closure to a sustainable and successful venue.

His vision and strategy led the theatre to more than double its audiences from 22,000 to almost 50,000 and the theatre moved from a consistently making losses to a stable and profitable position. The Stage recognised this in their 4**** review of his production of A Christmas Carol commenting “under John Martin as artistic director it seems, at last, to be vibrant again”

Under his guidance the theatre went from presenting just over 200 events a year to over 600. These included all art forms, – theatre, music and dance – as well as cinema. It took a year of intense negotiation but he was able to secure the ability to screen NT Live which became an important part of the many live broadcasts that enabled local audiences to experience the best of drama, dance and opera from all round the world.

Also he developed Trinity’s reputation on the comedy circuit with many top line comedians choosing Trinity to try out new material including Lee Evans, Michael McIntyre, Alan Carr, Jo Brand and many others. Comedy Café featured many comedians on the path to success – for example Tom Allen.

This was all achieved at a time when Trinity was having to survive significant cuts in funding. In addition, he has led on major projects to improve and develop and take the theatre forward always with a firm focus on serving the audience and local community.

Aside from his leadership and strategic skills John has also directed over 20 productions at Trinity including their annual Christmas shows, new original pieces of work that toured to the Vaults Festival in London and his own shows in the summer.

These have consistently received audience acclaim, high attendance, positive critical reaction and, particularly in respect of their Christmas shows, a consistent positive financial outcome. The most financially successful production was Oliver! which enabled many improvements to the building – including re-carpeting the auditorium.

In particular his production of the Wizard of Oz was given a five ***** review in The Stage which is an extremely rare accolade and was recognised as a “warm and immaculately performed production blending grit with the fantastical” .

His last Christmas show was Drew & Style’s version of the Wind in the Willows was the second most financially successful Christmas show after Oliver! and added extra performances to it’s run to accommodate demand.

Productions