Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport Written Evidence


Memorandum submitted by Pilot Theatre

  We are a national touring theatre company with over 21 years experience of delivering high quality theatre work to our target audience of young people. We create, develop and tour pioneering new work for young people, by enabling artists and audiences from all sections of society to address the challenges and possibilities of our time.

  Pilot create work which is targeted towards young people and developing these theatre audiences for this new century. The work aims to be inspirational in terms of its presentation and production values with an education programme offering aspirational possibilities.

  We offer learning through the arts with our performance-based work, both to develop our audiences and encourage their further participation in cultural activities. Using new technologies and multi media, working with venues and teachers in relationships developed over 20 years, we have an integrated approach to arts and education. Through our Education Programme, young people who take part in workshops are encouraged to discuss and debate the issues within the piece of work and how these relate to the world that they find themselves in. Learning about society, expression of ideas and feelings and the ability to make choices is the crux of this work.

  Our work is not single issued based as young people do not lead single-issue lives. Pilot recognises this and has developed an approach to look at the issues that are current in young people's lives. These are then incorporated into a directly relevant and communicable medium. We create theatre which is accessible, powerful and validated.

THE IMPACT OF THE THEATRE REVIEW

    —  Pilot started out as a touring company visiting schools and creating new work for our target audience of young people aged 13+. Since receiving our first Barclays Stage Partners funding back in 1997 we started to work in partnerships with venues including The Lyric Hammersmith, Leicester Haymarket, Bolton Octagon, and York Theatre Royal.

    —  The Theatre Review resulted in a substantial increase in our funding, both core and touring as we received one of the Arts Council's new Touring contracts. This enabled us for the first time to plan and develop a programme of work over a period of three years and commission new work, which would fulfil our stated objectives.

    —  Following the Theatre review we were able to develop our partnerships with venues a stage further and actually become resident in a building, (York Theatre Royal), where we have produced 11 shows in the last three years. We were able to extend the relationship further with Stage Exchange funding which enabled us to develop the work for young people with the Theatre across all departments. This has increased attendances of young people under the age of 24 by 49% and with a ticket price of just £3.50 has proved an enormous success.

    —  As a touring company this not only gives us a great base of support but also allows us to develop our work for, by and with young people working with companies and venues regionally, nationally and internationally. We are the British representative for a Culture 2000 project involving a European Network of theatre companies (magic-net.org) and we have been able to host European meetings and conferences at the theatre as part of an initiative to look at developing work for young people across Europe. Having a partner venue of regional importance to do this was of vital importance.

    —  It has allowed us to develop work across different scales and develop a strategic and integrated approach with Education, Marketing, Production and Artistic teams. The sharing of resources and being at the heart of a space that makes work is an enriching and creative experience.

    —  Significantly it enabled us to increase our team, attract and retain a high quality of staff to this area of theatre work and invest in training such people as part of a longer term investment.

    —  The increased funding also facilitated an expansion of our education programme to work with colleagues in education to deliver a National Education programme, sustaining and developing partnerships with organisations to deliver opportunities for curriculum and lifelong learning. It has also been very noticeable that the increase in funding from the theatre review resulted in an expansion of work in venues in Education and the collaborative partnerships we have been able to forge with these departments has resulted in a real increase in the engagement with theatre from Young People.

CONCERNS FOR THE FUTURE PATTERN OF PUBLIC SUBSIDY

    —  A major concern if funding levels to theatre were to be frozen is the impact on the sustainability of the work developed over the past three years. As a company we have invested time and money in the training of staff, permanent and freelance—artistic, educational and administrative—and through evaluation recognise an improvement in the relevance and standards of service.

        A freeze, (therefore in real terms a cut), would jeopardise these developments.

    —  The planned programme of work would inevitably be curtailed and the expectations of audiences and schools, set up in the past two years, would be hard to meet.

    —  As a Company who works primarily for young and new audiences we would find it difficult to ensure that our work remains accessible for all young people as the setting of low/subsidised ticket prices would be difficult to maintain with some venues.

    —  The Company would have to allocate more of its time and resources to sourcing alternative funding/income streams in order to keep its work with Young People accessible, particularly in cost terms.

    —  Cuts in funding would affect the support and development of new writing and new artists and thus ultimately the development of theatre—particularly in relation to young people.

  The last few years have seen a real resurgence in theatre. As a Company who has benefited from a re-distribution of funds in line with Arts Council stated priorities for work with young people we acknowledge the great benefit theatre for young people received under the Theatre Review. Such work is strategic and requires long term investment—the developments that have taken place in the last three years have been both significant and exciting—the news that it may now be jeopardised by a reduction of monies is highly disappointing. We hope that such a decision will be reconsidered.

13 January 2005


 
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