Lindsey McAlister

Lindsey McAlister OBE is an English theatre director and writer based in Hong Kong. She founded the Hong Kong Youth Arts Foundation in 1993. She has written several original musicals, including Flesh, Melodia, Cube Culture, If Not Me, Who? and I'mperfect. Since 2024 she began exhibiting abstract paintings, including the Hong Kong Affordable Art Fair.

Early life and education

Lindsey Anne McAlister was born in Southport to parents George McAlister, a factory manager, and Sylvia née Cardwell, a civil servant. She has two younger brothers. The family moved to Scotland when she was eight, and then to Cheshire, where she attended Knutsford High School and Meol Cops High School. Watching a school production of Iolanthe at the age of nine and subsequently joining a youth theatre group “ignited passion for theatre and the performing arts”. She attended Southport Art College from 1976 – 1978. The first year of her degree was at I.M. Marsh Campus, transferring to Crewe and Alsager College of Higher Education when the course folded. She graduated with a BA in Creative Arts.

Early work

McAlister originally wanted to be a performer but “early on, I realised I was rubbish and found that directing was my forte – to suit my bossy personality”. After graduating, McAlister formed a company, Talking Pictures, which was supported by the Arts Council of Great Britain. She also worked for the Gulbenkian Foundation, implementing the “Arts in Schools” project. She joined Liverpool-based company 489 as a creator and performer, then became arts programmer for the Menai Centre in Anglesey. She also worked with the Cheshire Dance Workshop from 1982 to 1985, where dance lecturer Veronica Lewis gave her opportunities to choreograph and create shows.

Hong Kong

In 1986 McAlister arrived in Hong Kong at the end of a year-long trip around Southeast Asia. Her intention was to return to the UK to resume a job with the Arts Council. However, she felt strongly that she should stay in Hong Kong, so “I rang the UK and resigned!” She spent a year teaching English in a kindergarten, choreographing fashion shows and as an artist-in-residence for Quarry Bay Primary School.
She created a project Showcase for Choreographers with the Hong Kong Dance Forum which in 1990 developed into the Scrambled Legs youth dance company and the youth theatre company Roundabout. Around the same time, she also started Parkview Youth Theatre Company, Plastic Bag Theatre Company, Waterworks Youth Theatre Company and Fusion Performance Company.

Hong Kong Youth Arts Foundation (HKYAF)

McAlister founded the Hong Kong Youth Arts Festival in 1993 – it changed its name to Hong Kong Youth Arts Foundation in 2006 – for people aged 5–25, regardless of cultural background, language or ability, to engage in multidisciplinary arts. Her intention was that she “didn’t want anybody to have to pay for anything” so needed to find external funding to cover all expenses. Initially, unable to find a sponsor due to her lack of track record in Hong Kong, she took out a personal overdraft to cover the costs of the first two-week festival. She sent a copy of the festival brochure to everyone she had approached for sponsorship, including Po Chung, the then-head of DHL. He got in touch with her, asking who her sponsor was. Hearing that McAlister was funding the whole enterprise herself, Po Chung gave her a cheque to cover the 1993 festival's costs, and also paid for the next festival too. McAlister was HKYAF's primary fundraiser from 1993 to 2019, about which she said “I really enjoy seeking sponsorship and I have developed a talent for it.”

HKYAF Productions

McAlister has directed the following productions for HKYAF:

Year	Title	Venue	Role	Notes / Ref.
1998	Matilda	Shouson Theatre, Hong Kong Arts Centre	Adaptor, Director
1998	Godspell	St John's Cathedral, Central	Director
1999	Matilda	Venue 34 at Edinburgh Festival Fringe	Adaptor, Director	Music by Nick Harvey
1999	West Side Story	Shouson Theatre, Hong Kong Arts Centre	Director
1999	The Magic Flute	Shouson Theatre, Hong Kong Arts Centre	Director
2000	Grease	Shouson Theatre, Hong Kong Arts Centre	Director
2001	Little Shop of Horrors	Shouson Theatre, Hong Kong Arts Centre	Director
2001	The Secret Garden	Shouson Theatre, Hong Kong Arts Centre	Director
2002	Bugsy Malone	Shouson Theatre, Hong Kong Arts Centre	Director
2003	Blood Brothers	Shouson Theatre, Hong Kong Arts Centre	Director
2003	The Wiz	Shouson Theatre, Hong Kong Arts Centre	Director
2004	Footloose	Shouson Theatre, Hong Kong Arts Centre	Director
2005	Fame	Shouson Theatre, Hong Kong Arts Centre	Director
2006	Disco Infernal	Shouson Theatre, Hong Kong Arts Centre	Director
2007	Insomnia	Fringe Club, Central	Director
2008	Lear’s Daughters	Fringe Club, Central	Adaptor Director
2009	Sweeney Todd	Shouson Theatre, Hong Kong Arts Centre	Director
2009	Storm in a Teacup	Fringe Club, Central	Director
2010	Rent	Shouson Theatre, Hong Kong Arts Centre	Director
2011	Spring Awakening	Shouson Theatre, Hong Kong Arts Centre	Director
2011	The Story of a Girl	Fringe Club, Central	Director
2012	Godspell	Shouson Theatre, Hong Kong Arts Centre	Director
2013	A Chorus Line	Shouson Theatre, Hong Kong Arts Centre	Director
2014	Oliver!	Shouson Theatre, Hong Kong Arts Centre	Director
2015	The Evil Within	Chinese International School Auditorium	Director
2015	Blood Brothers	Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts Amphitheatre	Director
2017	Melodia	Queen Elizabeth Stadium, Causeway Bay	Writer, Director	With music by Violaine Corradi and Rose Winebrenner
2018	Fame	Shouson Theatre, Hong Kong Arts Centre	Director
2019	If Not Me, Who?	ArtisTree, Quarry Bay	Writer, Director	Part of Theatre Bites series. Music by Violaine Corradi
2020	#Hashtag	Shouson Theatre, Hong Kong Arts Centre	Writer, Director
2021	Only a Girl	Shouson Theatre, Hong Kong Arts Centre	Writer, Director
2022	I’mperfect	Shouson Theatre, Hong Kong Arts Centre	Writer, Director
2023	24:7:365	The Box, West Kowloon Cultural District	Writer, Director
2024	Gen Last	The Box, West Kowloon Cultural District	Writer, Director

Lindsey McAlister Productions

In 1995 McAlister took a one-woman show Obsession is Not a Perfume to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
In 2002, alongside her youth work, McAlister established a production company for adults. Originally called Bloody Offal Productions, she changed its name to Lindsey McAlister Productions in 2005. It has produced the following shows to date:

Year	Title	Venue	Role	Notes / Ref.
2002	Sweeney Todd	Shouson Theatre, Hong Kong Arts Centre	Director Producer	Produced under Bloody Offal Productions
2003	Blood Brothers	Shouson Theatre, Hong Kong Arts Centre	Director Producer	Produced under Bloody Offal Productions
2004	Into the Woods	Shouson Theatre, Hong Kong Arts Centre	Director Producer	Produced under Bloody Offal Productions
2005	A Chorus Line	Shouson Theatre, Hong Kong Arts Centre	Director Producer
2006	Godspell	Shouson Theatre, Hong Kong Arts Centre	Director Producer
2007 2008	Flesh	Shouson Theatre, Hong Kong Arts Centre	Writer Director Producer	Music by Nick Harvey
2018	Cube Culture	ArtisTree, Quarry Bay	Writer Director	Music by Nick Harvey
2023	Mou Man Tai	ArtisTree, Quarry Bay	Writer Director	For Swire Properties' Project After 6

Collaborations

McAlister has collaborated with Violaine Corradi, Nick Harvey, Marsha Roddy, Rose Winebrenner and Brian Zellinger.

Visual arts

After a 40-year hiatus, McAlister returned to her visual art practice in 2022, creating a collection of Hong Kong-inspired artworks of “mix-n-match collages”. She has since exhibited paintings at Hong Kong's 2024 Affordable Art Fair, represented by Kambal Gallery.

Honours and awards

1997 – MBE for youth arts work
2006 – OBE for commitment & contribution to UK arts overseas
2007 – Honorary Fellowship, University of Central Lancashire
2019 – A portrait of McAlister I Am Hera was one of 10 included in Kate Sparrow's exhibition I Am Woman at the Fringe Club
2021 – Named as Tatler Asia's Most Influential
2023 – Distinguished Achievement Award, Hong Kong Dance Alliance
2023 – Joined Tatler Asia's Front & Female Award voting committee