This book is commissioned by Arts Council England and The Jerwood Charitable Foundation to celebrate and explore the role of the producer in the arts. It looks at the stories of a selection of individuals working across the arts to discover the qualities, vision and energy that drive them. At a time when ideas are shifting about how we might all respond to the producer, it is intended as a stimulus for artists, producers, and organisations, and for thinkers, funders, and decision makers, to elaborate our understanding of the people who are driven to express themselves in this way, and why what they do is of such value to us all.

The individuals featured have all allowed me to spend considerable time with them to develop their pieces, and I am very grateful for the honesty and generosity with which they have shared their perspectives and stories. I have found the process of understanding how and why they do what they do truly inspiring. I hope others do too.

I have developed the book with the close support and engagement of both Roanne Dods of The Jerwood Charitable Foundation and David Micklem of Arts Council England, who created the original brief. I have been asked to identify a selection of individuals working across art forms, ways of working, and generations, most in the UK, some abroad. Through them, the intention is to reveal something about all producers, not just those you meet in these pages. I hope that in their stories you will find a new sense of the possibilities of the producer's role.