Dick Penny, MBE

Dick Penny, MBE was born in Droitwich Spa and educated at Monmouth School and Ross-on-Wye Grammar School. His first job in the theatre was as administrator of the Little Theatre Company (1980–1983), which he set up with a group of Bristol Old Vic actors to keep the Little Theatre, in the municipally owned Colston Hall complex, going as a professional venue. His duties included everything from set building to front of house. Notable productions included Raymond Briggs\' 1983 adaptation of his own book When the Wind Blows, based on the UK Government civil defense booklet Protect and Survive, which transferred to the Whitehall Theatre. Between 1986 and 1988 Penny was the Associate Director at Bristol Old Vic with a brief to develop programme and audience. From 1991 to 1993 he was director of Watershed Media Centre, the UK\'s first media centre. He has been a board member of the Ashton Court Festival, Circomedia and Bristol+. In the 1990s Penny\'s production company Rebbeck Penny co-produced Macbeth with Bristol Old Vic for a UK tour. In 2007 he took over as Executive Chair of Bristol Old Vic with the main objective of reopening England\'s longest running theatre. He is currently the Managing Director of the Watershed Media Centre, an organization he re-joined in 1998. Watershed fosters cultural exchange and promotes engagement, enjoyment, diversity and participation in film, media, arts and the creative economy. Penny is also founding director of Bristol +, a creative partnership board made up of public sector officials and creative entrepreneurs. In 2010 he was awarded honorary degrees by the University of Bristol and the University of the West of England. He was awarded an MBE (Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) for services to the creative industries in Bristol in the 2011 New Year\'s Honours List.

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