Hattie Fisk

Hattie Fisk focuses on how theatre training, drama education and the wider stage industry shape the working lives of performers, students and teachers. She is an arts and culture reporter for The Stage, covering entertainment with an emphasis on institutions, resources and infrastructure that underpin the performing arts. Her work draws on years of editorial experience across drama and music education publications, where she has combined news reporting, features, interviews and reviews.

Performing arts training and drama schools

A distinctive strand of Fisk’s reporting looks at training in drama schools and performing arts institutions. In her coverage of Italia Conti, she examines how training intensity has shifted over time, using interviews with school leadership to explore changing expectations, student workload and the pressures of preparing graduates for a competitive industry.

She treats these stories as industry pieces rather than lifestyle features, grounding them in institutional policy, curriculum design and the practical realities of vocational training.

Across this work she is interested in the balance between rigorous training and sustainable practice.

She reports on how schools adapt programmes to evolving professional standards, and how decisions made by heads of training affect cohorts of aspiring performers. Her angle consistently connects classroom or studio detail to sector-wide questions about access, resilience and preparation for employment.

Theatre infrastructure and venues at risk

Fisk also reports on theatre infrastructure and the health of building-based venues. In her piece on Preston Guild Hall and the Forum in Cumbria being added to the Theatres at Risk list, she follows how decisions about specific sites sit within a broader map of vulnerable theatres. That coverage combines the formal classifications of at‑risk venues with the lived consequences for local communities and practitioners.

Her reporting on at‑risk lists and campaigns tends to track the journey of a venue from active programming through uncertainty to potential closure or rescue. She gives weight to the mechanisms used by sector bodies to evaluate risk and to the responses from operators, councils and campaign groups. The result is coverage that connects heritage, policy and economics without losing sight of the artists and audiences who depend on these spaces.

Drama education and student wellbeing

Fisk’s background in drama education publishing informs a body of work focused on resources for drama teachers and students. Her feature on mental wellbeing resources for drama students, teachers and schools surveys practical tools and support networks, treating mental health as an operational concern for education settings rather than an abstract theme. She collates information on workshops, digital platforms and guidance materials into service-driven coverage that readers can act on.

In this strand she pays attention to how educational environments can support students facing the emotional demands of performance and study. Her writing highlights initiatives targeted at classroom practice, pastoral care and institutional culture, often looking at how drama departments work with external organisations to embed support. This focus on wellbeing sits alongside her interest in training intensity, creating a through-line around sustainable careers in the performing arts, starting in education.

Features, interviews and performance coverage

Beyond infrastructure and education, Fisk works across formats: concise news stories, in‑depth features, Q&A-style interviews and live performance reviews. Her professional portfolio describes a mix of reporting and critical work in music and theatre, indicating regular engagement with productions as well as the systems that support them. When reviewing live performances, she draws on the same understanding of training and craft that underpins her reporting on schools and venues.

Her interviews tend to foreground practitioners, educators and institutional leaders, using their voices to illuminate structural issues such as funding, curriculum change or programming strategy. In features, she links individual experiences to sector trends, maintaining plain, direct prose that keeps attention on the subject rather than the writer.

Taken together, her work positions her as a specialist on the ecosystem around theatre and performance - from the rehearsal room and classroom to the venues and lists that determine where, and how, the work can be seen.