Each year the JMK Trust provides up to 20 talented young directors with awards, guidance and development opportunities. We present the annual The James Menzies-Kitchin Young Director Award (The JMK Award) to one outstanding candidate, supported in 2010 by the Jerwood Charitable Foundation.

The JMK Award is the single most sought-after prize for outstanding young theatre directors. Great directors acknowledge that you learn to direct by directing – but opportunities to do so are extremely scarce. The JMK Award allows participants to do exactly that. For many, winning this award is the breakthrough moment in their directing career. Increasingly, simply taking part in the Trust’s unique selection process has itself given a powerful impetus to the best theatre practitioners of the future.

A second award, supported by The Ian Ritchie Foundation, provides a smaller cash sum to be used to fund either a production or to enable further research to a selection of runner-up candidates.

Since 1998 the JMK Trust has discovered and nurtured a new generation of exciting, visionary young directors whose work and influence can be seen throughout the British theatre industry.