Hill, a protégé of Joan Littlewood, took over as artistic director after she moved to France, prompted by the death of her partner, Gerry Raffles. After his short tenure as artistic director, Hill continued to work with TRSE until his death, most notably in raucous musicals. They included The Invisible Man which transferred from TRSE to the Vaudeville Theatre in the West End in 1993 and Zorro! The Musical which opened two weeks after Hill's death in 1995. Notable productions by Ken Hill at the TRSE include On Your Way, Riley! by Alan Plater, Scrape Off the Black by Tunde Ikoli, and My Girl by Barrie Keeffe. Maxwell Shaw (1975–1977) Maxwell Shaw, another member of the original Theatre Workshop, was a character actor on both stage and film, most notably in The Oblong Box and Start The Revolution Without Me. He opened his tenure at the TRSE with his own adaptation of a Georges Feydeau farce Out of Practice. Clare Venables (1977–1979) Clare Venables was artistic director from 1977 to 1979. She went on to run the Crucible Theatre Sheffield from 1981 to 1992, was a founding director of the Actors' Centre and a member of the Arts Council Drama panel. She was principal of the BRIT School of Performing Arts and Technology in Croydon from 1995 to 1999; and director of education of the Royal Shakespeare Company from 1991 until her death in 2003. Notable Venables productions included Old King Cole, The Silver Tassie, The Funniest Man in the World, and Sisters. Philip Hedley (1979–2004) Philip Hedley, who had worked as an assistant to Joan Littlewood for some years, took over the artistic directorship of the Theatre Royal from Clare Venables in 1979. He provided traditional entertainment in style of old music hall variety shows on Sunday evenings while seeking to engage with new Asian and Black audiences, as the local demographic changed. The theatre continued Littlewood's agenda to portray and express the experience of local people in East London. In 1999, he began the Musical Theatre Initiatives scheme to encourage new writing in musical theatre. The final show he produced at Stratford East, The Big Life, was the first black British musical to go to the West End. In 2004, after 25 years as artistic director, he retired. Kerry Michael (2004–2017) Kerry Michael joined Stratford East in 1997, as an associate director, becoming artistic director in September 2004.