Peter Huntley
Director
Peter Huntley founded Smart in 2017 following a decade of self-producing and working for some of the UK’s most influential producers.
Peter has previously worked for Sonia Friedman Productions, Shakespeare’s Globe, the Really Useful Theatre Company and Jamie Hendry Productions. He was executive producer of Amélie at the Criterion and Feykom Tarab? A Night With Miami at The Arena, Kuwait, general manager of The Wind in the Willows on tour and at the London Palladium and A Christmas Carol at the Dominion and was associate producer of Bend It Like Beckham at the Phoenix. He has executive produced and led general management on immersive productions of Peaky Blinders: The Rise, Doctor Who: Time Fracture and The Great Gatsby for Hartshorn - Hook Enterprises. On film he has executive produced Grenfell (Channel 4) and The Wind in the Willows (cinemas and BroadwayHD).
Other productions include: The Wipers Times (UK tour and Arts); Trial by Laughter (UK tour); In the Next Room or the vibrator play (St. James); Lizzie Siddal (Arcola); Farragut North, Floyd Collins, Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me and The Belle’s Stratagem (Southwark Playhouse); As You Like It, Anne Boleyn and Hamlet (Shakespeare’s Globe and international tours); Much Ado About Nothing (Wyndham’s); Legally Blonde (Savoy); Jerusalem and All My Sons (Apollo).
Peter is a trustee of Hackney Showroom.
Callum Runciman
Executive Director and Executive General Manager
Callum has provided management and administrative support to theatre organisations for 12 years, and is executive director for Smart Entertainment.
Whilst at Smart, Callum has worked across numerous productions including: A Christmas Carol (Dominion); Grenfell: Value Engineering (Tabernacle, Birmingham REP); Doctor Who: Time Fracture and The Great Gatsby (Immersive Everywhere); Rehab the Musical (Playground, NEON194); Grenfell: System Failure (Playground, Tabernacle, Marylebone); Glory Ride (Charing Cross); Evita and Love Never Dies in concert (Theatre Royal Drury Lane); Feykom Tarab? A Night With Miami (The Arena, Kuwait); Nutcracker (Tuff Nut Jazz Club); and The Most Precious of Goods (Marylebone). He was an executive producer on Grenfell (Channel 4), and provides ongoing management for the London Musical Theatre Orchestra.
Callum has previously worked for Creative Juice, Jamie Hendry Productions, Chichester Festival Theatre and Warwick Arts Centre. Past productions include: The Wind in the Willows (Palladium, UK Tour); Impossible (Noël Coward, UK & International Tours); Much Ado About Nothing (Dubai Opera); Neville’s Island (Duke of York’s) and Let It Be (Savoy, Garrick, UK & International Tours).
Callum also designs narrative-based puzzle games. He was a designer on HiddenCity’s real-world adventure game 007: Shadow of Spectre, and co-designed and illustrated Trouble in Folklore Falls, a series of games published by The Detective Society. He also consulted on immersive mystery games for Disney+ brand activation events for the launch of Only Murders in the Building seasons 2 and 3.
Martin Ball
Consultant
Martin has worked as a management consultant in theatre and live entertainment for more than a decade. Notable engagements include acting as Executive Director for the new Boulevard Theatre in Soho, as Interim Finance Director for Theatre Royal Stratford East and as Executive Director for the Proscenium Entertainment Group. He has also provided production accountancy services for more than thirty productions in the West End and on tour during this time. In 2018, he founded Creative Juice, a company providing business support services to the cultural sector.
Prior to working as a management consultant, Martin spent three years in the general management office at Sonia Friedman Productions directly working on twenty-six productions in the West End and twelve productions on Broadway. He has also worked as General Manager for The Invisible Dot, Y Touring Theatre Company and Peter Huntley Productions.
Caitlin Eacott
Production Associate
Caitlin graduated from the University of Bristol with a degree in Theatre & Performance. She was most recently an Administrator at Shakespeare’s Globe. Caitlin began her career as an ASM working in Bristol venues including Tobacco Factory Theatres and The Loco Klub. She is a core-collaborator of artist collective PINCHY theatre, where she creates genre-bending theatre and live art events.
Previous productions include: Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Tobacco Factory Theatres and Salisbury Playhouse); Mr Burns, A Post-Electric Play (The Loco Klub); Too Much Liberty (The Wickham , Bristol); Killing Time in Darkminster (Workshop, PINCHY theatre); and FLITCH (Workshop, Packham & Kealy)
Rhiannon Handy
Associate General Manager
Before joining Smart Entertainment, Rhiannon previously worked with James Bierman at Empire Street Productions. As Production Coordinator, she was part of the team behind the multi award-winning Prima Facie (for its West End and Broadway run) and for the much anticipated West End revival of The Pillowman.
Since 2018 with companies she co-founded, (Angry Bear and now Muck & Rumble) Rhiannon has produced a number of sold-out theatrical events to raise money for charities such as CoppaFeel! and Young Minds at prestigious London venues; The Other Palace and The Royal Court. In 2020 lockdown with the arts moving online, Muck & Rumble produced two large scale series of filmed theatrical events. The first, an advent calendar including contributions from creatives such as Greg Doran and Papa Essiedu; the second using a ‘choose your own adventure’ software enabling audience to navigate their way through 6 new plays called 'Telling Tales'. The latter also raised money for Roald Dahl’s Marvellous Children’s Charity - a project which garnered much attention and was nominated finalist for an Offie Oncomm award.
Prior to producing, Rhiannon trained as an actor and has worked in the West End on shows like 2:22 A Ghost Story, for the RSC both in Stratford and on tour; and several no.1 commercial tours. She splits her time between Hampshire and London and is a keen advocate for excellent theatre being accessible to all and not Londoncentric.
Debbie Hicks
Production and General Management Consultant
Debbie is an award-winning theatre producer and manager working both independently and on behalf of other practitioners to deliver exceptional live entertainment to audiences across the United Kingdom and internationally. With over 17 years’ experience, she has supported dozens of entities across both the commercial and subsidised sectors. She specialises in the development and delivery of new writing, particularly new musicals and immersive work.
She has been producer for Perfect Pitch Musicals (ACE NPO) and Global Musicals since 2019, with currently running titles including SIX (West End, Broadway, and countless tours) and the Olivier-nominated Choir of Man (Arts). Both Global Musicals and Debbie Hicks Productions are developing a number of new musicals in partnership with Broadway powerhouse Alchemation, including Jack Godfrey’s 42 Balloons.
Her creative development work as an independent producer encompasses a slate of new musicals, plays, and experiential work including collaborations with long-term partners Oliver Mackwood Productions, Historic Royal Palaces, and Immersive Cult.
She has consulted for Underbelly Productions, the Old Vic, Jonathan Church Productions, Neil Laidlaw Productions, Iris Theatre, Viviana Durante Company, Up Piccadilly Productions, and countless more.
Debbie lives in Crystal Palace, London, with her cat Sondheim. In her spare time she is a doctoral researcher at the University of Oxford, writing a thesis on the interdisciplinary art of the Victorian avant-garde.
Lucy Rahim
General Management Associate
Lucy is a producer, writer and editor, and has been working in theatre (bar a short diversion into journalism) since 2016. She has worked across producing, marketing and orchestra management on events such as the Olivier Awards and West End Live, productions and concerts including A Christmas Carol (Dominion), Camelot (Palladium) and Best of the West End (Royal Albert Hall), album recordings and TV and radio broadcasts such as Magic at the Musicals (Royal Albert Hall – Magic FM) and The National Lottery’s Big Night of Musicals (AO Arena – BBC One).
As assistant producer at the London Musical Theatre Orchestra she was responsible for everything from writing programmes to managing the orchestra, creating social media and running the company’s highly successful Sitz scheme for developing musicians and singers. At the Society of London Theatre she edited the Access London Theatre brochure, wrote innumerable articles about new shows and was on the planning committee for Theatrecraft.
Alongside her work for Smart, Lucy is a freelance producer for the Watermill Theatre in Newbury and freelance content editor at PwC US. She will eventually get round to writing that novel.