Jo Caird: Is it Madness to Launch a Theatre in a Recession?

Meanwhile,
down in Vauxhall, another new, albeit temporary, theatre has just
launched with a production of The Lights by Howard
Korder. The Spring is a sprawling warehouse space that will
be knocked down in a year to make way for a new development. In the
meantime though it will be available for hire for all sort of events.

The
Spring follows in the super trendy footsteps of The Yard, a converted
warehouse venue in Hackney Wick that opened in July and will be
shutting its doors at the end of the month. This temporary space,
kitted out in recycled materials from the Olympic Park development,
was designed by Practice Architecture, the firm behind Frank’s Cafe,
the pop-up bar and restaurant that has perched high above south east
London on the roof of the Peckham Multi-Storey Car Park for the last
three summers.

Launching
a new venue is always going to be a complex and challenging process;
doing so in the middle of a recession doesn’t make it any easier. When you then consider these venues’ locations – inner-city
neighbourhoods whose communities are both economically and culturally
underprivileged – the task facing these theatres’ teams seems like
an extremely daunting one.

What
the Brixton Empire, The Spring and The Yard have in common, however,
is a spirit of pragmatism that, with any luck, will enable them to
succeed. The Brixton Empire has struck a deal with Mass and with The
Brix at St Matthews, the company that runs the building, that allows
them to use the space for free for theatre productions as well as
vocational programmes for long-term unemployed young adults living in
the area. Brixton has live music venues, a great independent cinema,
plenty of fantastic restaurants, bars and cafes, but no theatre. The
idea is that the Empire will fill this gap.

The
Spring and The Yard, on the other hand, are both making innovative,
creative use of otherwise unoccupied spaces, taking advantage of
materials and space to create something beautiful for a limited
period. If the crowd at The Yard last night was anything to go by, these venues will succeed through attracting the type of punters who like to be ahead of the game in terms of discovering new and unusual culture and nightlife locations.

The
futures of the two warehouse venues are already decided (although the
team behind The Yard are hoping to continue the adventure and are
currently in talks to see about achieving this aim), but only time
will tell when it comes to the success of the Brixton Empire. The
theatre has received plenty of generous in-kind support from local
institutions and businesses, as well as from the Young Vic and the
National Theatre, but artistic director Daljinder Singh hopes the
Empire will be self-sufficient in due course.

Much,
of course, depends on whether they can drum up enough interest, both
locally and London-wide, to sustain audiences for the work.

When
it comes to getting local bums on seats, Singh is reasonably
confident, relying on Brixton’s strong community vibe to keep people
excited and engaged. She intends the theatre to plug into what she
calls the “personality of Brixton” – it will only programme work
that engages with the area’s diverse and vibrant atmosphere. Locals
can take advantage of concessionary tickets for all performances and
tickets to all Monday night shows cost just £6.

Spreading
the word to wider theatre audiences beyond the immediate local area
will be more of challenge, but social media and the huge increase in
online review sites have made marketing much cheaper and more
straightforward than it was in the past, giving new venues like the Empire a better chance of success.

Every
new theatre is different, of course, but for a vision of the Empire’s
future, we might look to how the New Britannia Theatre has fared
since its launch above a Hackney pub in December 2010. Alanna Leslie,
one of the venue’s three artistic directors, acknowledges that the
timing of the New Britannia’s launch could have been better, in terms
of the financial climate, but doesn’t believe the theatre has
suffered as a result of the recession. Setting out without funding
(but with the premises hired to them free of charge by the Britannia pub),
the team agreed to work on a voluntary basis for the first year, so
any profit they make from ticket sales can be ploughed back into the
new company’s running costs. “Audience support has been good”,
Leslie says, adding that the team is currently applying for funding to help
towards future development.

It’s
an cliché that the arts thrive when times are hard, but clichés
don’t usually come from nowhere. The Return of the
Exile, the piece of experimental theatre I saw last night
at The Yard, was not the highlight of my cultural year by any means,
but it was undeniably ambitious in its scope and offered a few really
engaging, powerful moments of performance. The venue itself I can’t
praise enough, from its imaginative auditorium design, to its
fantastically atmospheric bar. I hope very much that the team are able to find a life for The Yard beyond the end of this month.

Brixton
Empire is a very different set-up from The Yard, but is no less
ambitious in its approach, hoping to bring high quality theatre to a
community that has been without it for a long time. The venue has
only been open for a week, but the combination of Daljinder Singh’s
passion and pragmatism and the support she and her team have mustered
from the local and theatre community are very promising indeed.
Here’s hoping that old cliché turns out to be true.