Our dear friend Robert F. Ball (1968-2020), artistic director of FRED Theatre and Shakespeare educator, died unexpectedly earlier in August, a week short of his 52nd birthday. His untimely death leaves a huge hole in the lives of so many of his friends, his colleagues in the theatre industry, and his students.

Robert had always had a passion for theatre and performance, and appeared as an actor with a number of amateur groups, including the Crescent Theatre in Birmingham, for which he also directed a number of productions. He eventually was appointed Arts Manager of the Crescent, a position which he held while working full-time in the marketing sector. At one point he felt that he wanted to dedicate more of his time to the study and the practice of drama, so in 2009 he went back to education to pursue an MA in Shakespeare and Theatre at the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-upon-Avon. After completing the degree part-time, he made a radical career change: he quit his job and applied to undertake an MPhil in Directing and Dramaturgy at the Department of Drama and Theatre Arts of the University of Birmingham. In 2012, after finishing the programme, he founded his own professional theatre company, FRED, with which he would work to the end of his life, directing and producing almost 30 shows. Past triumphs include FRED's productions of The Merchant of Venice (@AEHarris/Stan's Cafe, Birmingham; 2012) , Jonathan Lloyd's The Lasting Sense of Sudden (Dublin Gay Theatre Festival, 2013), The Importance of Being Earnest and The Mandrake Root (FRED's Shed, Stratford, 2014), Friend or Foe (WW1 plays, national tour, 2016), Forrester & Fletcher's One Year Off (Old Red Lion, London, 2016), The Dutch Lady (premiere of a lost Restoration comedy; The Shakespeare Institute, Stratford, and on tour, 2017), and Peter Malin's adaptation of tales and poems by Edgar Allan Poe, Why Will You Say that I Am Mad? (The Bear Pit, Stratford, 2019). More information about FRED Theatre can be found here: https://www.fred-theatre.co.uk.

Robert was also a passionate Shakespeare teacher, and he had a long working relationship with the London campus of CAPA Global Education, where he taught a regular Shakespeare course and summer school, also taking young American students to the Globe, the National Theatre, or the Old Vic to experience the best of Shakespeare in performance. With FRED, he had also devised a series of very popular cut-down productions of Shakespeare which the company was touring to schools.

The funds raised in this campaign will be spent in covering funeral expenses, and any money in excess will be donated to the Theatre Artists Fund, a campaign to support freelance workers in the theatre sector who, like Robert, are struggling in the current COVID-19 pandemic. More information here: Theatre Artists Fund.