Sir Nicholas said: “It’s been a joy and a privilege to lead the National Theatre for ten years and I’m looking forward to the next two.
"I have the most exciting and most fulfilling job in the English-speaking theatre; and after 12 years it will be time to give someone else a turn to enjoy the company of my stupendous colleagues, who together make the National what it is.”
Under Sir Nicholas's leadership the National has featured a number of Jewish productions, including Ryan Craig's Edgware-set The Holy Rosenbergs, Tadeusz Słobodzianek's Holocaust play Our Class, Mike Leigh's Two Thousand Years, Antony Sher's Primo - an adaptation of Primo Levi's If This Is A Man - and Richard Bean's East End immigration play England People Very Nice, which featured hora-dancing Chasids.
Sir Nicholas is only the second artistic director to have run the theatre for more than 10 years - Sir Peter Hall having led it for 15 years.
He will oversee the end of the National's capital project which will see the Cottesloe stage re-open, rebuilt as the Dorfman.
The theatre will be named after Jewish philanthropist Lloyd Dorfman. The project has been a key part of Sir Nicholas's work to democratise theatre and broaden the National's audience.
