Volunteers are Quay to success
Following my earlier epistle, in which I remarked that most small-town theatres cannot survive on what the auditorium shows bring in alone and volunteered several suggestions to overcome this (Stage Talk, December 19), I have since heard from a community theatre in Suffolk that is actively making its venue money.
The Quay Theatre in Sudbury, which has been open for some 33 years but in recent times has struggled to keep afloat, has managed to reduce what it owes from £250,000 to less than £100,000. Others in the same boat might be interested as to how the venue set about this.
While the theatre is grateful for £45,000 in grant aid from Babergh District and Sudbury Town councils, it costs £75,000 just to keep it open, leaving fundraisers to find the annual shortfall of some £30,000.
With no help at all from the arts council, Quay co-coordinator and board director Nicki Murphy set up a scheme to help make the theatre pay for itself.
Apart from obvious ruses such as boosting the theatre’s profile, which last year Honor Blackman and Jo Brand most certainly did, the theatre mounted an appeal for people to come forward to lighten the load.
It must be said that there are just six part-time staff at the Quay. Every time it put son a show, a minimum of five volunteers are needed – more are required for a full house.
Consequently, a team of volunteers that donated 9,000 hours of work between them – the equivalent of almost five full-time posts – helped to pull their theatre back from the financial brink. Chair of the board of directors Bryn Hurren has said the theatre “couldn’t survive without volunteers”.
This year, to help the theatre pay for itself, the Quay will hire out all parts of the building – the bar and the foyer already proving a first-class venue for weddings and parties. Groups can now hire the jetty for courses, and the auditorium can be hired for private film screenings.
The My Theatre Matters! campaign website collates details of supporters, who can then be put in touch with local groups whenever a theatre is threatened with cuts. They can also follow the campaign on Twitter @theatrematters.
Faith Hines
Convener
Celebrating Shakespeare
Old Court
Long Melford
Suffolk
Help us save the Hippodrome
Here in Brighton, we are facing a struggle to save the beautiful Hippodrome theatre, which is faced with redevelopment into a restaurant and multi-screen cinema complex. In the process, the stage will be demolished and the service yard will be much reduced by the building of shops upon it, thus removing the Hippodrome from any further use as a theatre.
Many organisations, my own included, are against such a development taking place, having petitioned the council to keep the Hippodrome as a theatre and community space. Brighton is very fortunate to have many different arts-based groups within its borders, and they need a home. There is also interest in bringing major national tours here – something we may never truly enjoy without the Hippodrome.
We hope soon to speak to the council, but in the meantime I would like to ask your readers to support us in our fight by writing to the chair of Brighton and Hove City Council’s economic development and culture committee. His name is Geoffrey Bowden and he can be reached at geoffrey.bowden@brighton-hove.gov.uk.
Mjka Anne Scott
Chair
Brighton and Sussex general branch
Equity
Email address supplied
Bennett-Walker, I fink-nottle
In response to Rupert Bennett-Walker’s letter (Stage Talk, January 16) I think that if you are going to start criticising others for their choices or subjective opinions, you should at least get your facts right.
Mr Bennett-Walker questions why I am picked out for mention when Jeeves and Wooster in Perfect Nonsense was also produced by Mark Rubinstein, and that it was Mr Rubinstein’s original idea. Mark is my producing partner and my friend, but it was I who produced a version of this play 20 years ago on the Edinburgh fringe, and then more recently commissioned this version, which I have spent the last three years bringing to life. I invited Mark to partner with me much later on, and I am delighted he agreed.
This is of little importance in the grand scheme of things, but it shows we all have differences of opinions over these matters and sometimes reach our conclusions using incorrect information. All the names mentioned in your reader’s letter are worthy of praise, but in a list such as The Stage 100 there will inevitably be omissions.
However, and with respect, I would suggest that the industry newspaper has a greater sense of the industry pulse than Mr Bennett-Walker.
Mark Goucher
Producer
Mark Goucher Ltd
Garrick Street
London WC2
Analysis fails to factor in regions
Ticketmaster’s survey of UK theatre and attendances is flawed because it does not distinguish between the West End and regional theatre, or between large and small theatres (Insight, November 14, 2013, page 6). The sample of 1,456 theatre attenders is too small. Cost is also a significant factor.
West End productions have long runs, which enables theatregoers to spread out their visits and costs throughout the year.
The situation in the regions is completely different because touring shows visit a theatre usually for one week only.
Theatregoers in Greater Manchester are fortunate to have three theatres on the number one touring circuit – the Palace and Opera House in Manchester and the Lowry in the adjacent city of Salford. Frequently, there are shows on at two and sometimes all three theatres during the same week, which theatregoers want to see but are prevented from doing so by the cost.
A top-price ticket (excluding premium seats) can be more than £50 plus booking fees. This, together with travelling costs, parking fees, programme and interval drinks, means that it costs a couple in excess of £100 for a night out. This prevents them from taking children to the theatre to become the theatregoers of the future.
The survey is so flawed that it serves no useful purpose.
R Swindells
Bolton
Time to justify theatre levy fees
Your coverage of the Apollo Theatre incident (News, January 9) is even more reason for an explanation as to where the restoration levy is going. Why is there this deafening silence?
Alexander Jules
Email address
Neglecting to reply is just rude
I know the season of open letters is getting rather ridiculous in the world of showbiz, but I feel compelled to write this as I’m getting thoroughly bored of all this nonsense. The theme of my letter is manners in the industry.
I completely understand that as an actress I am at the bottom of the food chain but I am fed up with the unnecessary rudeness we are subjected to every day.
I quite understand that we are all very busy, but if someone contacts you with a specific and personalised invitation, the least you can manage is an automated message expressing that you are very busy and cannot make it.
I can well imagine that producers, directors, casting directors and the like are bombarded with messages every day, but I feel particularly slighted when the silence comes from someone you have worked with, trained with or met personally.
Many offenders are those who gave up acting to seep into the less oversubscribed areas of the industry and so may have clawed their way up the ladder a little faster. It’s just so rude.
Especially when leviathans of the industry such as Mark Rylance and Rupert Penry-Jones have the grace and humility to reply. It really seems astonishing that theatre practitioners working on the fringe who don’t even pay their actors cannot be bothered to respond. There is no excuse.
Name and address withheld