Phil Willmott (born 26 January 1968) is a British director, playwright, arts journalist, teacher, and founder of London based theatre production company The Steam Industry.
For his own company, The Steam Industry, award-winning productions of new writing have included The Fundraisers, Fucking Men, Watch Out for Mr Stork, Venetian Heat, Born Bad and The Oedipus Table, and classics such as Crime and Punishment, The Grapes of Wrath, Trelawny of the 'Wells' and Loyalties (all at the Finborough Theatre) and Blood Wedding, Helen of Troy, Disney's Jungle Book, Petite Rouge, The Caucasian Chalk Circle, The Cyclops, Children of Hercules, Treasure Island, Oedipus, Agamemnon, Androcles and the Lion, and The London Nativity at the Scoop.
His other notable Steam Industry productions include Joe DiPietro's play Fucking Men which transferred from the Finborough Theatre to a box office record-breaking run Off West End at The Kings Head; Victor/Victoria, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (The Bridewell); Measure for Measure (Riverside Studios); Ring Round the Moon (King's Head); The Winter's Tale (The Courtyard Theatre); Titus Andronicus, Germaine Greer's Lysistrata, Murdered Sleep, Inherit the Wind, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, The Sound of Music, The King and I, Calamity Jane and Sweet Charity (all at BAC where he was an associate artist); South Pacific, Joe Orton's Funeral Games and his own musical Dick Daredevil and play Venom (The Drill Hall); Joe Orton's Crimes of Passion and his own plays Stealing the Scene, Succulence and Mermaid Sandwich ; and radical Shakespeare adaptations The Wax King (from Henry VI parts 1, 2 & 3 ), Iago (from Othello) and Illyria (from Twelfth Night) at The Man in The Moon.
He has directed cabaret and concert tours of Four Poofs and A Piano and Nonsense, Children's Laureate Michael Rosen's collaboration with composer Colin Riley (The Royal Festival Hall).
He has led new writing development projects at Soho Theatre and The National Theatre Studio, lectured at Goldsmiths College, RADA and the Brit School and directed students in The Seven Ages of Sondheim, Nicholas Nickleby, Petite Rouge, Sherlock Holmes – The Early Years and Jesus Christ Superstar (Arts Ed) Romeo and Juliet (Central School of Speech and Drama) Dear Anyone (Guildford Conservatoire) Napoli Millionaria, Three Men on a Horse and Backstage (Rose Bruford) The Taming of the Shrew, Howard Barker's The Possibilities and First Love (The Court Training Company) His work as a playwright and composer is widely published and performed internationally and as a journalist he regularly broadcasts, blogs and writes about theatre.