Theatres: Investment

(asked on 7th December 2022) - View Source

Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of Arts Council England's 2023-26 Investment Programme on the number of producing theatres in England.


Answered by
Stuart Andrew Portrait
Stuart Andrew
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Culture, Media and Sport)
This question was answered on 12th December 2022

Many theatre organisations based in buildings present a mixture of their own produced work, work that they have co-produced with other partners (either another theatre building or a theatre company), and work that they ‘buy in’, which they are not directly involved in making. As well as theatre organisations based in buildings, there are producing theatre companies which do not own or lease a building but which make theatre which is then presented in a network of theatres around the country. Given this mixed ecology, it is not possible to provide a comprehensive assessment using the definition of “producing theatres”.

The data shows that investment in theatre and the number of theatre organisations supported have both increased in the Arts Council England 2023–26 Investment Programme (although some organisations may have changed discipline classification between 2018–22 and 2023–26).

In the 2023–26 portfolio Arts Council England has maintained investment in theatres such as Live Theatre in Newcastle – a significant investor in new writing. Arts Council England has also maintained investment in many producing theatres outside the capital, including Sheffield’s Royal Exchange, Bristol Old Vic, Birmingham Rep, and more – and has increased investment in the Royal Court in Liverpool and Coventry’s Belgrade Theatre.

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