Artistic director Marcus Romer is to leave York company Pilot Theatre after 22 years to go freelance

"I'll be moving on at the end of the financial year to take up some new and exciting freelance opportunities," he said. "I’m proud to be leaving the company in a great financial and reputational position. We’ve secured our second round of Arts Council NPO (National Portfolio Organisation) funding until 2018, have European Union-funded projects until 2019, and have built a great team who are creating extraordinary work across the UK and internationally."

Founded in Castleford, Pilot Theatre took off when Mr Romer and his team became the company in residence at York Theatre Royal. "It’s been a phenomenal job and I’ve worked with lots of amazing people, some them at the start of their careers, and helped them on their way to make amazing projects. Thanks to everyone who has been part of the journey up to now," he said.

"But all of these things are just work things. During that time I have seen my two children grow up and launch into the world and be creative and brilliant, and I’ve shared the journey with Susie, who continues to go from strength to strength and is now heading up an amazing charity in Cambridge, where we now live."

Looking to the future, Mr Romer said: "It seems like the right time to take the new freelance opportunities that are coming my way. I’m going to carry on making new projects and helping to deliver new ideas in a freelance capacity from 2016, so, onwards and upwards."

Among his highlights, he directed the first live streaming of a theatre production in 2008, which led to the six-camera live streaming of the 2012 York Mystery Plays in the Museum Gardens for the BBC and The Space. "Pilot now lead the TheatreLivestream.TV project nationally," he said.

Mr Romer created five national Shift Happens conferences at York Theatre Royal that ran from 2008 to 2013. "These led to TEDxYork, which I also curated, and became the template and structure for the Arts Council/British Council’s No Boundaries, which ran in 2014 and 2015," he said.

Marcus Romer at the helm of Shift Happens

He oversaw 960 performances of Pilot's first ever tour of his production of William Golding's Lord Of The Flies. "It ran between 1998 and 2008 to almost every theatre in the country," Mr Romer said. "We employed five different casts in six separate productions over the period and won the Manchester Theatre Award for best touring production."

He wrote the script and co-directed the £3 million film adaptation of The Knife That Killed Me, a Pilot Theatre and Kit Monkman project in 2013-2014 that created the first ever feature film shot entirely on Green Screen in Yorkshire and was then distributed by Universal Pictures.

In 2013, he brought cutting-edge Leeds company Slung Low on board to join Pilot and York Theatre Royal in mounting the First World War community play Blood + Chocolate on the streets of York.

In 2014, he was part of the team pitching for York to win the title of Unesco City of Media Arts, the first city in the UK to achieve such a title. "I am continuing to help steer that project forward with new plans and ideas," he said.

The recruitment process for Mr Romer's successor will begin in late November.