Transform Perth Theatre newsletter August 2015

Welcome

Major milestone reached as Transform Perth Theatre plans approved Since our last newsletter the project has reached an exciting milestone with detailed plans being submitted to Perth & Kinross Planning Department and subsequently being approved by Perth & Kinross Council Development Management Committee. This is a key step along the way to the transformation of Perth Theatre. The plans, including layout of all floors, building elevations and artists’ impressions can be viewed on the planning section of Perth & Kinross Council’s website.

The contractor and design team have carried out a number of site investigations including surveys of the ornate plaster work, drainage, utilities, rot and damp, roof, building structure and foundations. A sample refurbished seat has also been obtained and this will be on public display shortly at Perth Concert Hall. The detailed results of the surveys will be received in due course and will be used to inform design development and cost planning with a view to identifying and reducing any construction risks prior to the main work starting.

The next stage of investigative work is taking place this month and includes a test pile and bore hole being carried out on site.

Open Sessions Members of the public are invited to two further Open Sessions on Monday 21 September at 6pm and 7pm where they can meet the Transform Perth Theatre project team and view and comment on the plans.

Spaces are limited for these free, but ticketed sessions, please contact Horsecross Arts Box Office on 01738 621031 or visit www.horsecross.co.uk to book your place.

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Funding Update As we continue to work towards raising £1.5m to kit out your new theatre, we are delighted to introduce two new members of our development team led by head of development Louisa Evans.

Rachael Prothero, individual giving officer Rachael Prothero has worked at Horsecross Arts Box Office for four years and joins the expanded development team as individual giving officer. In her role she will manage our Individual Giving programme to help raise the final £1.5m required to support the transformation of Perth Theatre. Bringing Rachael on-board means that we now have the capacity to further develop and nurture our relationships with you - our loyal audiences and supporters - and to devote more time to listening and responding to those who value most what we do. If you would like to find out how you can support the project please don’t hesitate to contact Rachael on 01738 472731 or email her at rprothero@horsecross.co.uk

Drew Campbell, trust & foundations officer Our new trust & foundations officer is Drew Campbell, who comes to us after several years as a self-employed writer and consultant on business planning in the voluntary sector. Drew joins Rachael Prothero as the other new addition to our development team where he’ll develop proposals and prepare applications to various trust funds and charity foundations. Drew brings a huge amount of experience to this role and is looking forward to contributing to the final £1.5 million we need to take us over the line in our fantastic effort to meet the £16.6 million target to restore and redevelop our wonderful theatre.

If you’d like to know more about Drew’s work you can contact him on 01738 472742 or email him at drewcampbell@horsecross.co.uk

Thanks!

We would like to extend a big thank you to Horsecross Arts admin/finance assistant Gary Merralls who has pledged 50% of proceeds from his upcoming sold out gig with his band Vortex to the Transform Perth Theatre fund with the other 50% going to Cancer Research.

If you are holding an event and would like to raise funds for the project, our development team would love to hear from you!

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Perth Theatre Out and About Perth Theatre’s Out and About season continued with a rapturously received Horsecross Arts and Dundee Rep Ensemble co-production of the Charles Dickens’ classic Great Expectations. The feedback was phenomenal and the production in Perth Concert Hall gathered a string of much deserved 4 and 5-star reviews. Audience members felt the same way: ‘Great Expectations at Perth Concert Hall was absolutely amazing! First class performance and the amazing haunting music and song throughout. I’ve never experienced anything that held the audience to that extent from start to end. ..you could hear a pin drop.’

‘a magnificent and stately piece of darkly comic “gothica”’ ***** The Herald

‘I went to the show in Perth every single night and fell in love again with the musical!’

Audience member, Calamity Jane

More than 6000 musical lovers came to see the week-long run of Calamity Jane in Perth Concert Hall with some of our audience members coming to see it multiple times! We know of one fan who saw the production five times so it was a nice surprise for her when we fulfilled her dream of meeting the lead actor Jodie Prenger!

This year’s family pantomime Beauty and the Beast takes to the Perth Concert Hall stage from Saturday 12 to Saturday 26 December.

Written by Alan McHugh and directed by Ian Grieve, Beauty and the Beast will feature many familiar Perthshire faces in the cast including Tom McGovern and Amanda Beveridge. Regular pantomime dame Barrie Hunter - described by the Sunday Herald last year as ‘possibly the best Scottish pantomime dame since Stanley Baxter’ – dons his frocks and heels again for this annual festive favourite.

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Your New Theatre

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Architect’s image: Perth Studio Theatre

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Your New Theatre

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The new 200-seat Studio Theatre will be a welcome addition to the existing performance space, allowing the programming of smaller scale theatre, music and dance productions and hosting other genres such as comedy, talks and events. It also expands our ability to host conferences in the new theatre; an important aspect of our mix of business that sees thousands of delegates ock to the city and contributing millions to the local economy.

This modern, clean and exible space will be the perfect contrast and complement to our lush and ornate B-listed auditorium which will be restored to its former glory as part of the transformation.

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Your New Theatre - Audio Description ‘now I can laugh at the same time as everyone else’ ‘I don’t even hear what the describer is saying; I just see the pictures being painted’ Improved access is at the heart of the project to restore and redevelop Perth Theatre, including better facilities for our visually impaired customers. For the first time audio description will have its own dedicated room built specially for purpose at the back of the soon to be lovingly restored Edwardian main house with direct sight of the stage.

The new studio theatre will also enjoy audio description facilities.

Perth Theatre was one of the first theatres in the UK outside of the main cities to develop an audio description service to enhance the experience of our customers with visual impairment. Experience gained in Perth Theatre was the driver for the now widely adopted audio description tracks found on feature films and heard in cinemas across the world.

All thanks to a small team of passionate committed individuals sitting in the dark at the back of Perth Theatre who wanted to increase access to the performing arts through the spoken word.

The art of audio description brings theatre to life for visually impaired audiences.

Audio description is a craft – it is a real creative skill to know when to let the sound of footsteps on stage create the picture, when and what facial expressions to describe and when to allow silence to do the describing. Audio description provides opportunities to connect and reach out to new audiences, not just those in the theatre but those that for various reasons can’t make it in person to a show. We are exploring ideas around broadcast of live audio described theatre to hospital radio providers, care home facilities and other audio outlets. Perth Theatre has in the past radio broadcast to Perth Royal Infirmary with great success through the old fashioned media of analogue radio, and in our new digital world we now have the option to broadcast high quality sound to hospitals across the UK. As the transformed theatre takes shape we want to build on our 25 year history of audio description at Perth Theatre and increase opportunities for accredited training, working in close partnership with the audio description community.

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Youth Arts Festival ‘our young people never cease to amaze us with their imagination, dedication and talent’ Noëlle Cobden, head of creative learning Horsecross Arts

The transformed Perth Theatre will have dedicated spaces where our young people can develop their skills.

More than one hundred and eighty members of Horsecross Arts Join-In groups took over Perth Concert Hall from Thursday 18 to Sunday 21 June for the annual Youth Arts Festival.

Young people from the age of 5 to 18 from Perth Youth Theatre, Perth Autism Youth Theatre, Young Playwrights, Glee, Glè, Young Choreographers and Perth Youth Dance company crammed in 12 performances over 4 days showcasing the acting, dancing, singing and playwriting expertise they have picked up at their regular workshops this year.

Applications are now open for a new season of Join-In activities. For information on how to take part contact Horsecross Arts Box Office on 01738 621031 visit www.horsecross.co.uk

STAR ACTS ‘Perth Theatre had a huge influence on me’ Colin McCredie Ex-Perth Youth Theatre member Colin McCredie trained at the RSAMD and is best known for appearing as D.C Fraser in over 75 episodes of ITV’s Taggart. He has also appeared in River City, Dr Finlay, Talking Over the Asylum, The Missing Postman and CBeebies Woolly & Tig. Recent theatre includes Ian Pattison’s I, Tommy and Dear Scotland for the National Theatre of Scotland. Colin has also appeared in the feature films Shallow Grave and Small Faces.

Looking back on his time in PYT, Colin said: “I spent virtually my whole teenage years at Perth Theatre! I was in Oliver and Babes in the Wood in 1984, Peter Pan in 1985, French Without Tears in 1987 and The Admirable Chrichton in 1988. I went to Perth Youth Theatre on a Saturday morning run first by Liz Carruthers then Ken Alexander. There were only two boys, me and Ewan McGregor.

I worked in the Box Office after school and delivered posters around Perth as well!

I also worked backstage doing get in and get outs and was a follow spot operator too. Perth Theatre had a huge influence over me.”

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Share your stories Drama lovers will collect and share memories of Perth Theatre Horsecross Arts has recruited a group of drama loving volunteers to play their part in preserving and sharing the history of Perth Theatre.

The Perth Theatre Memory Collective will help us collect people’s memories for the benefit of future audiences, building on the extensive archives already held in AK Bell Library.

Anyone can join the Memory Collective; all they need is an interest in the theatre and a curious mind! From people who have their own memories of theatre productions and special moments to share to those who may be studying history, possibly looking for a dissertation or project subject, we are open to all levels of expertise and experience. As well as making a valuable contribution to the history of Perth Theatre, the Memory Collective is a great way for a group of people with a common interest to get together and make new friends.

Working from now until Perth Theatre reopens in 2017, the Memory Collective will explore the theatre archives and record oral history from community members presenting their findings in various forms.

Launch The Perth Theatre Memory Collective will be officially launched with a sharing and gathering day on Saturday 12 September as part of the Perth Concert Hall 10th Anniversary Community weekend. If you have a wonderful story, interesting memory or juicy bit of gossip from the life of Perth Theatre, please join us on the day and share your story with us. We are also looking for photographs, programmes, tickets or other Perth Theatre memorabilia that you would be willing to donate to us or that we can take a copy of on the day. Join us at Perth Concert Hall from 10am.

For further information: email project leader kirstyduncan@horsecross.co.uk or call Creative Learning at Horsecross on 01738 477729.

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Share your stories Perth Theatre regular, Neil Foston who grew up in Perth and was an English teacher in Annan and Arbroath has been coming to performances in the venue since the 1950s. Here, he shares some of his memories: “My earliest memories are of pantomimes in the 1950s. I tend to associate that with the smell of old-fashioned gas lighting and viewing from the gods* - especially seeing things you weren’t meant to, like one of Macbeth’s ghosts waiting to come up the steps below the trapdoor, smoking a fag - the fake boulders round the “fire” didn’t conceal anything from above! And I can remember Lady Macbeth getting her nightgown stuck on a nail.

Each tug only increased the audience’s hilarity...

“During the 1960’s we saw a different play each week, very cheaply - as members of the junior play-goers club. There was some wonderful innovation, typified by a memorable production of Sergeant Musgrave’s Dance. Like most of my friends, I was under the spell of lead actress Alison Fiske, and remember some hilarity when - due to casting problems - she had to play Ophelia opposite the company’s grand old man as Hamlet, over twice her age and with a gammy leg.

It was always nice to see in the flesh people you later saw on TV or films. I remember my mother getting excited about the new Canadian actor (Donald Sutherland). I saw Ewan McGregor’s uncle Dennis Lawson – a fine actor – in pantomime.

‘it was always nice to see in the flesh people you later saw on TV or films. I remember my mother getting excited about the new Canadian actor (Donald Sutherland)’ Neil Foston

“In later years, I organised many school trips to Perth Theatre. At times, its quality far exceeded the other theatres in the east of Scotland. One standout was One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest - to compete with a wonderful film takes some doing, and they did it. And West Side Story (with Jason Connery) was the first stage musical I had ever truly enjoyed.” *The gods (upper circle) are being reinstated as part of the Transform Perth Theatre project.

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The plan is to...

Restore The Edwardian auditorium will be meticulously conserved and ‘gods’ will be reinstated!

Build A new studio space will enable small - mid scale music and drama productions to take place.

Create New spaces with facilities and state-of-the-art equipment will support an expanded creative learning programme.

Improve The redevelopment will take a giant leap forward in improving access throughout the entire building.

A theatre for the people of Perth to be proud of!

Contact us

If you have any comments, feedback or stories to share contact: Louisa Evans, development manager Horsecross Arts Mill Street, Perth, PH1 5UZ 01738 477721 transform@perththeatre.co.uk

Thanks to our funders and partners

Horsecross Arts Ltd is registered in Scotland, no SC301328 and a charity no SC022400. Registered office: Perth Concert Hall, Mill Street, Perth PH1 5HZ

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