Paul Taylor-Mills stands down as Other Palace artistic director in shake-up

The theatre will open itself up to developing work beyond musicals as originaly intended

Paul Taylor-Mills has stepped aside as artistic director of The Other Palace as the theatre begins to shift its focus from only producing new musicals.

Taylor-Mills, who opened the venue with Andrew Lloyd Webber in 2017, will become affiliate producer at the theatre, with Chris Harper taking on the role of director of programming.

This change also heralds a change in policy, opening up the main house to new plays as well as developing musicals, with examples including Big Fish, Eugenius, and the upcoming Heathers.

Harper is one-half of Elliot Harper Productions who, along with director Marianne Elliot, has produced Heisenberg in the West End, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe in Leeds, and will bring Company to London later this year.

Taylor-Mills, whose first show as affiliate producer will be Heathers, said: "After spending the last couple of months being able to get my hands dirty on the producing of "Heathers The Musical", I've reminded myself that this is where I get really excited and am keen to be able to focus my attentions on more of my independent projects."

Andrew Lloyd Webber's Really Useful Group launched The Other Palace, formerly known as the St James Theatre last year to focus on developing new musicals with a large main house space, and smaller studio space for workshops. Over the past year and a half, they have workshopped musicals like Heathers, Lloyd Webber's Starlight Express and Alain Boublil's Manhattan Parisienne.