She may be making history but, as chief executive of Newcastle's new £8m theatre, Erica Wyman is more intersted in the future, she tells Viv Hardwick.

UNTIL the question is asked, Erica Whyman hadn't even thought about making history as Tyneside's first female theatre chief executive.

She's also a rare sight in the region as a woman theatre boss who can direct her own shows, having previously run Notting Hill's famous Gate Theatre as artistic director.

"Do you know I think I probably am the first," she says with obvious surprise. Across the Pennines, Liverpool's Everyman has set the tone by appointing women at the top while Jude Kelly has combined the roles of chief executive and artistic director at Leeds' West Yorkshire Playhouse for many years. But the North-East has a male-dominated theatre culture which is about to change now that Whyman is taking charge of one of the UK's top ten producing houses undergoing an £8m rebuild on the site of Newcastle's former Playhouse and Gulbenkian theatres.

"Obviously, I'm used to seeing women theatre bosses in London and that has been empowering, but I think I'll be changing the landscape a little in Newcastle. With a woman in charge I think it's more likely that you have the social skills involving building groups of people who feel they work together as a family. That's now a bit of clich about feminine skills but I also have abilities that are more macho than that regarding saying 'No' sometimes, being decisive and controlling financial planning very carefully. I'm aware that this is a tight-knit company that's been through an extraordinary phase of work with just one person at the helm, so my first job is to bring some continuity to all this."

Currently, Harrogate-born Whyman is focused on directing plays in Oxford and Nottingham and will be visiting Northern Stage's temporary base at Byker as often as possible. But she's happy to keep a watching brief on the current season of Great Expectations, being staged at Newcastle's Tyne Theatre, and the Christmas show at The Discovery Museum, Newcastle, plus a tour of 1001 Nights Now starting in September.

The former artistic director of Southwark's Playhouse is a product of the Clore Leadership Programme created by former Minister for Culture Chris Smith. The scheme is assisting 27 top arts professionals by equipping them with the all-round skills to run major projects and ensuring the UK has a new generation of cultural sector leaders. Whyman is the only theatre director involved but accepts that, by the very ambitious nature of the candidates, there is competition to see who can go highest up the career ladder.

In fact, Tyneside can now boast two Clore-trained bosses, with Keith Merrin currently the director of Bede's World in Jarrow. "We know each other quite well, particularly when the 27 of us have just done a conference on an organic farm in the middle of nowhere," Whyman jokes. "It's unlikely I'd have had contacts with Bede's World if I'd come to Tyneside at another time, but I will because the connections I have are brilliant," she says.

On the complexities involving a new job and new theatre, Whyman says: "I think Northern Stage has been identified with Alan Lyddiard (her predecessor) for so long that people were hand on mouth about it coming to an end but these things always do. What it did mean is that I'd never thought about Newcastle before and it was only when the post was advertised that I learnt about the redevelopment and that's what got me excited. It's a whole new phase of the company's life."

Whyman feels that she is more inclined towards exploring the classical theatre rather than Lyddiard's championing of contemporary productions and is already feeling the pressure of finding a programme with impact to launch the new-look theatre next year.

"Next September is a long way off and we've got a lot of work to do until then. What I can say is that the new space created (by knocking through the original Playhouse theatre into the next-door Gulbenkian) will really transform the performance area," she says.

She's also looking forward to winning back the attention of the Royal Shakespeare Company next year - the Newcastle tour has used the city's People's Theatre instead of the former Playhouse for the past two years - with the opportunity of becoming one of the first world class names to appear in the new-look venue.

Wisely, Whyman sidesteps the banana skin of criticising the RSC for failing to invite either of its Newcastle producing house partners - Northern Stage and Live Theatre - to become part of this year's Shakespeare season at Stratford-upon-Avon. All 37 of the Bard's plays are being presented - 22 by invited guest companies - across the year.

"I think you can see from the list there are extraordinary companies from all over the world and even though it seems a huge number of plays, it doesn't give you all that many opportunities. I think we're in a very privileged position in Newcastle by receiving RSC shows for a whole month," she says, although she admits that a dream project is to take a Northern Stage Shakespeare-rooted production to Stratford.

"It's also not going to do me much harm either to have 'Born In Yorkshire' stamped on my passport," she says.

* Great Expectations, Tyne Theatre, Newcastle, Oct 10-15. 0191-232 1232

l How The Sea Came To Be, The Discovery Museum Great Hall, Newcastle, November 16-December 31. 0871 7000 125

Published: 02/08/2005