Giles Ramsay is an independent theatre director and producer who specializes in creating new work with artists in developing countries. He is the Founding Director of the charity Developing Artists and a Fellow of St. Chad’s College, Durham University.

He is currently working on long-term projects in Zimbabwe, Palestine and West Africa as well as setting up a new Serbian Theatre Initiative for The United Nations in Kosovo. Since 2004 he has worked with The Anglo-Mexican Foundation as a producer of MEXART which showcases the best theatre and dance from Mexico. In 2010 they will co-present the opera Montezuma at The King's Theatre in Edinburgh in the opening week of The Edinburgh International Festival.

He has previously produced international work at venues ranging from The Riverside Studios, The Theatre Museum, Artsdepot, Flowers East Gallery and The National Theatre in London as well as at The Pleasance Theatre, The Assembly Rooms and The Traverse Theatre (Fringe First winner 2005) in Edinburgh. In 2010 he is presenting two Mexican artists at The British Museum in London.

As a writer, Giles won The Soho Theatre’s Westminster Prize with his play Shall We Go to the Alhambra? Other plays include Territory (Harare, London, Edinburgh), Only As Multiple (Edinburgh) and Crocodile which premiered at The Harare Festival in May 2007 and received a staged reading in the USA starring Lisa Harrow in October 2008. Recent directing credits include The Glass Menagerie for Northern Stage, USA in March 2009 and a Zimbabwean version of Oedipus Tyrannus which opened in Harare in May 2009. In 2010 he created a new show for The Harare International Festival of the Arts which then toured to The Bulawayo Theatre and in 2011 he will return to Northern Stage to direct The Rainmaker.

Giles was educated at the universities of Cambridge, London and Durham (where he was President of the Union). He also spent a year at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts as part of his MA in drama and since 2009 has been the Honorary Patron of Durham Student Theatre.

In 1987 Giles led The British National Debate Team on its annual tour of America and in 1992 was awarded both a Chautauqua and a Page Scholarship by The English Speaking Union. Throughout the 1990s he was Director of Studies for Summer Schools in Drama at the University of Edinburgh and Director of Drama at Trent College, Nottingham. He was formerly Head of Divinity at King’s College, Taunton and also taught English Literature at Queen’s College, Harley Street.

Giles has run drama workshops at schools, universities and theatres in Cape Verde, Denmark, Mexico, Thailand and Zimbabwe, organized many development and travel programmes for theatres affiliated with the North American Theatre Communications Group and given numerous talks for institutions ranging from The Foundation for Mexican Literature in Mexico City to The Royal College of Physicians in London. Currently he is Course Leader in Modern Theatre at The Victoria and Albert Museum in London. He also regularly lectures on the history and practice of European theatre on Cunard’s Queen Mary 2 as it sails from New York to the UK.