China Plate’s Board of Trustees provide essential leadership, expertise and guidance, collaborating with our Co-Artistic Directors and Executive Director to shape and guide the company’s artistic mission and business strategy.
Trustees meet four times a year to review and progress the company’s performance against its mission to develop a new model of creating and producing theatre that opens up the way performance is made, who makes it and who its experienced by. Trustees also provide individual support on discreet projects and specific aspects of the business plan.
China Plate is seeking new relationships with artists, entrepreneurs and professionals who can help shape the company as we seek to work as part of creative communities (outside of and within the arts) which could include artists, organisations, freelancers, community groups, participants, and audiences, as we explore our new model for making theatre.
If you’re interested in finding out more, we’d love to hear from you. Please contact our Executive Director Chloe Courtney.
Raidene Carter
Trustee
Raidene has been a cultural leader and creative producer for over 20 years. In this time, she has worked for Talawa Theatre Co., the Lyric Hammersmith, Birmingham REP, the Albany, Deptford, and Theatre Centre, before taking up the role of Executive Producer (Cultural Programmes & Live Sites) for the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games. Here, she led the Birmingham 2022 Festival, the 6-month festival of creativity wrapped around the Games, oversaw the city’s Festival Sites and delivered the Prize Medal design and fabrication project.
Following this, Raidene became Creative Director for Birmingham Festival 23, a free, 10-day celebration of Birmingham’s creativity and culture, marking the one-year anniversary of the Games. She is currently Artistic Director and Co-CEO of Artsadmin, which runs Toynbee Studios, and produces a range of hyperlocal and international artists projects, and artist development initiatives.
Raidene was an inaugural MOBO/LTC Executive Fellow (2016) and is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama (2021).
Photo © Jas Sansi
Indy Datta
Trustee
Indy has spent more than 20 years working in legal, business and commercial affairs in the TV and film industries, spending a large part of his career at the BBC.
He is currently VP of legal and business affairs at the international production arm of SF Studios.
The last time he appeared on stage, the play’s noted playwright came backstage afterwards and scolded him for his cheap melodramatics.
Cerian Eiles
Trustee
Cerian is an independent consultant with over 15 years’ experience working across the arts sector and with a range of art forms in roles that include strategic fundraising support, organisational development and business planning. She takes a holistic approach through mentoring, hands-on support, strategy development and fundraising.
She has worked with organisations that include the National Theatre, the Old Vic, Theatre Royal Stratford East, Talawa, the Royal Court, National Centre for Writing, Apples and Snakes and Mosaic Rooms, but specialises in working with grassroots organisations, as exemplified by her long-term relationship with The People’s Orchestra.
Alongside her work with The People’s Orchestra, Cerian’s current clients include Old High Street Intra Cultural Consortium, creating ground-up community, cultural and heritage based regeneration in her local area, and Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch, creating a business plan and fundraising strategy for two strategic projects.
Christina Elliot
Trustee
Christina Elliot is Head of Programming & Producing at The Place, London’s creative powerhouse for dance development.
Christina leads a team of producers to deliver The Place’s theatre programme, artist development initiatives and new producing and touring projects. Her areas of specialism include project development, partnership working and fundraising.
Key recent projects include the development of the third phase of the Rural Touring Dance Initiative, the expansion of The Place’s in house producing team and the growth of The Place’s Festival of Korean Dance into a national touring programme. Christina has had the pleasure and privilege of working alongside many brilliant artists and companies at The Place (including Requardt & Rosenberg, Igor x Moreno, Lost Dog, Sivan Rubinstein, Extended Play & SAY) and previously whilst producer at Fuel (2006 – 2014, including Inua Ellams, Will Adamsdale & Clod Ensemble). Christina was on the board of Bristol based Uninvited Guests from 2014 – 2023.
Photo © Nici Eberl
Paul Hewlett
Trustee
Paul is the Chief Operations Officer for the CORE & Co Foundation, an education charity that provides social justice solutions for children and young people. Foundation projects include SAFE Birmingham, a Department for Education backed initiative designed to reduce children’s vulnerability to serious youth violence and Raise My Game, an LTA funded tennis programme that supports secondary school students to build resilience, wellbeing and fitness through access to high-quality coaching.
As Director of Content for Into Film, Paul led content production and curation for the BFI’s 5-19yrs film education programme. In his early career Paul worked in film and television production before joining the UK Film Council’s New Cinema Fund, supporting new talent partnerships with FILM4, Sight & Sound, Dazed magazine and BBC Film.
Prior to joining CORE & Co Paul had the privilege of being part of the China Plate team, working as their General Manager between May 2019 and September 2021.
Nadine Lewycky
Trustee
Nadine is currently Assistant Registrar (Governance) at Queen Mary University of London.
She has over 10 years’ experience in the higher education sector, having worked extensively to help bring university research to the public.
She has a PhD in History from the University of York and an extensive interest in the arts. She has been a board member with China Plate since 2014.
Sarah Preece
Chair
For the past 24 years Sarah has been in leadership roles in top UK arts companies such as The Gate Theatre, the Royal Court and Battersea Arts Centre.
She was most recently Joint CEO at Mountview drama school and the executive lead for the new Mountview building in Peckham, where she was awarded an Olivier Special Recognition Award in 2020 for relocating Mountview and for promoting accessibility.
Mountview received a RIBA London Award in 2021 and Sarah was awarded Southwark Excellence Awards: Business Woman of the Year in 2020.
Sarah now works as a consultant supporting transformational change at an individual, team, organisation and civic level.
Born in Birmingham, she is a graduate of Goldsmiths College, London, holds a Masters in Organisational Development from Middlesex University and was a Clore Fellow in 2007/08.
Kaya Stanley-Money
Trustee
Kaya is the Executive Director & Joint CEO of Camden People’s Theatre, a studio theatre in London dedicated to supporting early-career artists and its local community with radical engagement initiatives. Before taking on the role at Camden People’s Theatre, Kaya was a producer with China Plate where she developed and toured the work of artists and companies including Caroline Horton, Inspector Sands, Ben Wright and Chris Thorpe.
In her early career, Kaya worked as the Production Coordinator for Little Angel Theatre, touring pieces such as A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings (Kneehigh) to children and families throughout the UK. Kaya is also a trustee of Marlborough Productions, a leading UK producer of queer-led, intersectional performance based in Brighton.