Two acclaimed young directors are to jointly run Manchester’s Royal Exchange, one of the UK’s most prestigious theatres. Roy Alexander Weise and Bryony Shanahan will become artistic directors this November, replacing Sarah Frankcom who is leaving to run the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.

In a joint statement, Weise and Shanahan said they were excited to “make work with and for the people of Manchester”. They also praised the way the Royal Exchange has been transformed under Frankcom’s leadership: “She has reimagined the relationship that artists and audiences have with this theatre, championed their voices and celebrated the democracy that the Exchange’s unique space allows.”

The in-the-round theatre is situated in a building that was once the world’s largest cotton exchange. As the Royal Exchange’s current associate artistic director, Shanahan knows its theatre and studio spaces inside out. She staged Maxine Peake’s drama Queens of the Coal Age at the Exchange last year and is directing its adaptation of Wuthering Heights in 2020. Shanahan has also directed plays at the Crucible in Sheffield and Soho theatre in London.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Unique space … Manchester’s Royal Exchange theatre. Photograph: Mark Waugh/Alamy

Weise is best known for directing The Mountaintop, a play about Martin Luther King, at the Young Vic, and for Nine Night, Natasha Gordon’s debut about a Jamaican funeral wake. It opened at the National Theatre in 2018 and became a West End hit. He is an associate artist of London’s Donmar Warehouse.

Both Weise and Shanahan are recent recipients of awards for emerging talent. The Royal Exchange’s executive director, Stephen Freeman, described them as “innovative creative thinkers” with “a drive to deliver theatre with the broadest possible reach”.

Frankcom, who shared the theatre’s artistic directorship with Greg Hersov for several years before taking sole charge, said: “My tenure has been about championing next-generation artists, so I’m absolutely thrilled that Roy and Bryony will now shape and lead the Royal Exchange. They are exceptional artists who make visceral and transformative theatre. I know them both to be the most passionate of collaborators and truly authentic and inspiring leaders.”