Directors // Che Walker

Director and writer Ché Walker is the recipient of the Peter Brook Award (Mark Marvin Rent Subsidy Award) for his plays Crazy Love and Burnt Up Love, among many other awards for his work.  Most recently, Estate Walls, directed by Ché, opens at the Oval House Theatre in London on the 21st of September.  LoveSong, written & directed by Ché, starring and with music & lyrics by Omar Lye-Fook, has been seen recently on tour in the UK.  LoveSong was a nominee for the Musical Theatre Matters Best Script in 2010.

Ché’s original play The Frontline premiered at Shakespeare's Globe in London in 2008 and returned to the Globe in 2009, making theatrical history as the first contemporary-set new play to be performed at the Globe since The Merry Wives of Windsor in the 17th Century.  His very first play, Been So Long, premiered at the Royal Court Theatre in 1998 and was runner-up for both the Meyer-Whitworth and the John Whitting Award before being translated and performed in Sweden, Denmark, Germany, New Zealand and Australia.  His 2009 musical version of Been So Long was a nominee for The Ned Sherrin Award for Best Musical in the Evening Standard Theatre Awards and for What’s On Stage Best New Musical and the winner of  the Musical Theatre Matters Judge’s Award.  His play Flesh Wound premiered at the Royal Court in 2003 and won the George Devine Award for Most Promising Playwright, as well as a UK Arts Council Writers of the Future Award.

Ché studied acting at the Webber Douglas Academy in London (1989-1992 graduating with Distinction) and at WAC (1998), and has worked with Edward Bond, Dennis Potter, Philip Ridley, Mark Ravenhill and Ricky Gervais, among others.

Ché has taught acting at RADA, Central, E15 and the Arts Project for Socially Excluded Youth, he has been Head of Acting at the Weekend Arts College for over ten years. He has taught writing for the Royal Court Young Writers' Programme, in the Feltham Young Offenders' Institute, at the Centre Point Homeless Shelter, and for Hampstead Theatre Youth Project.