DIRECTOR
"The ingenuity of the staging...under the direction of Debs Newbold fleshes out the mammoth bones of [t]his tale with colour, wit and style" ★★★★★ - Henley Standard
"I loved it. Newbold's background as a storyteller is abundantly clear in her direction...a joy to watch" ★★★★★ -Abstract Marks
“theatrical magic under Deborah Newbold’s direction” "rich and nuanced" - ★★★★★ - Oxford Mail
"rich and nuanced" - ★★★★ , StageTalk Magazine
Debs makes highly visual, playful and affecting theatre with storytelling at its heart. A director with a keen dramaturgical eye, Debs is equally at ease working with classical texts, new writing and devised pieces. Her work and approach is always focused on playfulness and is particularly influenced by her extensive collaborations with John Wright and her work on both the indoor and outdoor playhouses at Shakespeare's Globe.
She is particularly skilled at incorporating live music into her work: Her production for Creation Theatre, a site-specific musical adaptation of Bleak House (Olivia Mace), garnered multiple 5 Star reviews. In Promised Land (Mr. Wilson’s Second Liners) Debs turned a supermarket loading bay into a 90s rave complete with an 11 piece New Orleans brass band.
Debs also directed the play-with-music Rising Up. This was also Debs' debut as a playwright, and incorporated a live score by Sean Cooney. The play premiered at HOME Manchester before going on two national tours ("visceral and affecting...a piece of theatre that needs to be seen and heard" - Dominic Walsh, At The Barrier ). Rising Up was performed by actors Joanna Holden and Helen O'Hara and musicians Lucy Farrell, Sam Carter and Jim Molyneux.
Debs has most recently directed Chris Hannan’s adaptation of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime & Punishment for Leeds Conservatoire, in which she incorporated a church pump organ into proceedings, and Moira Buffini’s Welcome to Thebes in which Debs turned the entire auditorium of Leeds Carriageworks in to a site specific performance space.
Debs’ work is strongly influenced by the devising technoques she learned during her MA at Goldsmiths where she studied with leading teachers and practitioners from Ecole Jaques Lecoq, Ecole Philipe Gaulier, Complicité and Song of the Goat. For the past 14 years Debs has been mentored both as a director and performer by John Wright.
In 2025 she will direct Countess Dracula! a devised comedy drama for OfTheJackel.
GALLERY
Production shots from some of the shows Debs has directed can be found below together with Debs’ Selected Directing credits.
Debs Newbold Selected Directing Credits
2025 COUNTESS DRACULA!, OfTheJackel
2024 WELCOME TO THEBES, Leeds Carriageworks
2023 CRIME AND PUNUSHMENT, Chapel FM, Leeds COnservatoire
2020 BLEAK HOUSE, Blackwell's Bookshop, Oxford, Creation Theatre
2019 RISING UP, HOME Manchester & UK Tour, Manchester Folk Expo & HOME
2019, THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM (R&D), Stratford Circus, Komola Collective
2019 PROMISED LAND, Durham International Brass Festival, Mr Wilson’s Second Liners
2018-19 FERAL, UK Tour, Canopy Productions
2018 (as co-director) HOW TO BE AMAZINGLY HAPPY, Lawrence Batley Theatre/Edinburgh Fringe, Victoria Firth
2018 CLASS MATES, Square Chapel Halifax (rehearsed reading), Draycott-Trimm
2015 – 18 SHAKESPEARE’S STORIES, Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, Shakespeare’s Globe Education
2014 THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR (asst. director), Shakespeare’s Globe, Shakespeare’s Globe Education
2014 KING LEAR RETOLD, Shakespeare’s Globe & UK Tour, Debs Newbold/Shakespeare’s Globe Education
2013 (as co-director) HER CONJURING VOICE with Emily Portman, Kings Place, Alan Bearman Music
2011 THE SNOW QUEEN TRAIL, Rose Theatre Kingston
