PLAY YOUR PART
The Festival and King’s Theatres – Investing in our Community and the Future of Performing Arts
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YOUR LOCAL INDEPENDENT THEATRES The Festival and King’s Theatres in Edinburgh are two of Scotland’s best-loved and most prestigious theatres. Along with the Studio on Potterrow they form the Festival City Theatres Trust – a registered charity and Scotland’s largest independent theatre organisation. As custodians of these beautiful, historic theatres we are committed to preserving and developing them for the city and to presenting the best in live performance to as wide a public as possible. We actively promote our stages and buildings as community spaces where we can collaborate, participate and share ideas and experience. Every year, we welcome over 430,000 patrons to our theatres, over 25,000 people participate in our creative learning activities and we contribute over £6m to the Scottish economy.
“ The Festival Theatre in Edinburgh represents a template for all other venues to follow – staff go out of their way to make the whole experience very special indeed.” Sally Nisbet, Activities Coordinator at Leuchie House
3 The relaxed performance of Cloud Man in the Studio. Photo by Greg Macvean
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THE FESTIVAL THEATRE
The Festival Theatre is situated on Edinburgh’s longest continuous theatre site. Formerly the Royal Amphitheatre, Dunedin Hall, Newsome’s Circus, the Empire Palace and the Empire, the venue, with its current auditorium dating back to 1928 and a brand new stage, glass façade and front of house areas was relaunched in 1994 as the Festival Theatre. Among the many legends to have trod the boards are Charlie Chaplin, Laurel & Hardy, Fats Domino, Margot Fonteyn and David Bowie. Today, at just over 2,500 square feet, the Festival Theatre stage is the largest performance area in Scotland and the third largest in the UK. Home to Scottish
Ballet and Scottish Opera, and a key venue for the National Theatre of Scotland, the National Theatre and the Edinburgh Festivals, it has also gained an international reputation as one of the world’s leading dance houses. With a seating capacity of 1,915, the year round programme includes cutting-edge contemporary dance, large-scale musicals and event theatre, international ballet and opera productions and a variety of stand-up comedy and live music shows. The Studio, 22 Potterrow, built to the rear of the Festival Theatre and opened in Summer 2013, plays host to a full programme of smaller-scale productions and festivals. It provides a vital rehearsal space for the Festival Theatre and has become a hub for much of our Learning & Participation activity.
“ We had a great time at the Festival Theatre. The venue was great, the staff very helpful and cheery and Mary Poppins was an absolutely amazing show. A magical experience for the kids”. 5 Ross Sherra with his wife Nicola and children Matthew and Lauren. Photo by Phil Wilkinson
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THE KING’S THEATRE
The King’s, built on the site of a brewery, opened as a palace of varieties in 1906, with 1,315 seats. The jewel in the Howard & Wyndham theatre empire for over 40 years, management of the King’s was taken over by the City of Edinburgh Council in 1969 and then by the Festival City Theatres Trust in 1998.
Sean Connery, Katharine Hepburn, Laurence Olivier and Stanley Baxter and the tradition for staging popular theatre continues with the King’s pantomime, a programme of quality touring drama, crowd-pleasing kids’ shows and a number of productions from local amateur societies throughout the year.
From its very beginnings, the King’s Theatre has played a prominent role in the cultural life of the city. Over the years it has played host to legendary performers such as Anna Pavlova, Maria Callas,
In 2013, we unveiled a dramatic new centrepiece for the King’s Theatre dome, ‘All The World’s A Stage’, the largest public mural by Scottish painter and playwright, John Byrne.
7 The King’s Dome mural by John Byrne. Photo by Amanda Fraser
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OUR PLACE IN THE CULTURAL LIFE OF THE CITY
The Festival and King’s Theatres are integral to the cultural health of Scotland, and we are committed to using culture and creativity to build a stronger community. We play a lead role in helping the City of Edinburgh deliver on its cultural strategy. We are in the unique position in the city of offering the full range of performance arts including drama, dance, opera, music, ballet and children’s theatre from local, UK and international touring companies, all year round. This allows us an extraordinary opportunity to make a wide range of creative learning activities available. In collaboration with our partner organisations, we are proud to support
independent performing arts companies and artists. We are pioneers in Access and Participation; the first theatre in Scotland to stage a relaxed performance; the first theatre in Scotland to stage a dementia friendly performance of a major touring musical; the first theatre in Scotland to stage a variety show created and performed by children from all of the state-funded special schools in Edinburgh and the first theatres in Scotland to become dementia-friendly communities.
We are a charity and rely on grants and donations to keep the theatres going and to invest in our work to make the theatres more inclusive. Ticket income alone is not enough to stage an average of 500 performances a year and an additional creative learning programme of over 250 events every year, most of which are free to attend. We are part-funded by the City of Edinburgh Council and Creative Scotland, whose support accounts for approximately 10% of our annual
income but it is also the generosity of our donors, sponsors, Patrons and Friends who help maintain the quality of our programming and the scale and reach of our education activities.
WHY WE NEED SUPPORT
Individuals, trusts and businesses support us because they believe in our mission to bring the highest quality theatre and dance to Edinburgh, to provide opportunities for people from all walks of life and to support the future of performing arts in Scotland.
We are dedicated to sharing the knowledge, skills and talent of our permanent staff and the amazing individuals we work with in our partner organisations and visiting companies. 9
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PERFORMING FOR EVERYONE
Education is at the heart of what we do, and vital for developing new audiences. We have developed an extensive programme of creative learning, opening up the experience of live performance to those who normally would not or could not come to our theatres. We aim to offer inclusive activities that are inspirational and innovative and we work with local, national and international partners in order to achieve this.
‘ It’s my one day in the week for getting out and meeting people really, and it’s great fun.’ Pam,
We can help make a difference by creating and sustaining engagement in the arts, nurturing creativity and talent and developing a provision that can support and enable communities.
singer with the Vintage Chorus
We focus on four key strands of activity to encourage diversity in our audience and equality of access to our activities: 1 Schools 2 Overcoming barriers to access 3 Supporting emerging talent 4 Community engagement
‘ It’s my one day in the ‘ It’s my one day in the week for getting out and week for getting out and meeting people really, meeting people really, and it’s great fun.’ Pam, and it’s great fun.’ Pam, singer with the Vintage Chorus
singer with the Vintage Chorus
Pam Ratter (third from left) with the Vintage Chorus. Photo by Phil Wilkinson
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SCHOOLS
We inspire children and young people’s learning across the curriculum using live performance as a starting point, working closely with teachers to develop programmes that work for all interests and abilities.
We aim to raise the aspirations of children in disadvantaged areas of Edinburgh through participation in the arts by developing relationships with schools that have had little or no previous engagement with the theatres.
We support teaching staff by delivering skills-based workshops as part of their career long professional learning, which gives them the confidence to develop their own creative teaching and learning practice in schools.
In projects such as START, we give young people who are new to theatre an inspiring free programme of visits to professional shows, workshops to develop new skills, support to create their own artistic work and the opportunity to share their work on Scotland’s biggest stage.
“ Wow! That was out of this world. Thank you for giving us this epic experience.” P7 Pirniehall Primary participant in the START project
13 War Horse schools event, June 2013. Photo by Aly Wight
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OVERCOMING BARRIERS TO ACCESS
In 2012, the Festival Theatre staged the first ‘relaxed’ performance in Scotland. We now present a regular programme of specially adapted relaxed performances at all 3 of our venues, providing the opportunity for children with a range of additional support needs to see a show at their local theatre. We currently provide more signed, audio-described and captioned performances than any other UK theatre and we host an annual access day to introduce new audiences to the range of services we provide. As part of our community outreach, we launched ‘Panto Presents’, an annual project with the Sick Kids Foundation
designed to take the magic of the panto to children who are in hospital in the lead up to and during the Christmas period. We work in partnership with local arts centres including WHALE Arts and North Edinburgh Arts to provide skills development, creative learning and live performance opportunities to children living in areas of multiple deprivation. With the help of significant funding from Scottish charity the Life Changes Trust, the Festival and King’s Theatres officially launched Forget Me Not in September 2015, a pioneering collaborative project designed to create dementia friendly communities at the heart of our cultural venues.
“ This is the first occasion that Braidburn has been able to attend an outside event as a whole school. A visit to a theatre is a first for many of our pupils and we thank you for providing this opportunity, the experience of which will last a lifetime.” Teacher, Braidburn School
“ This is the first occasion that Braidburn has been able to attend an outside event as a whole school. A visit to a theatre is a first for many of our pupils and we thank you for providing this opportunity, the experience of which will last a lifetime.” Teacher, Braidburn School 15 Rizwan Watt of Braidburn School, at the relaxed performance of the King’s panto. Photo by Phil Wilkinson
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SUPPORTING EMERGING TALENT
We are committed to supporting artists of all ages by offering theatre and dance skills development workshops for different levels, from taster sessions to advance classes. In April 2016, we launched The Attic Collective, a new theatre company for young people in Scotland. It will be a unique free talent development initiative offering professional training, industry access and performance opportunities. The Collective will be offering a year’s free training to 40 talented members, aged 18-26, and the opportunity to perform in three productions each year on the main stages of the Festival and King’s Theatres.
One of our greatest achievements in recent years in supporting emerging talent was the DanceQuest 3 year project, and we marked the legacy of that achievement in January 2016, with the first DanceFest, an annual celebration of Youth Dance showcasing dancers from across Scotland. We provide a vital performance platform for young performers starting out in their careers, annually hosting the shows of the MGA Academy and the work of graduating students from Edinburgh College, as well as showcasing work from young disabled artists.
“ This is a dream come true!”
Kayleigh Mckenzie, aged 9, Prospect Bank School
17 Participants of DanceQuest. Photos by Aly Wight
Andy Gray on stage with Kaleigh at the Awfey Huge Fantastic Variety Show, June 2016. Photo by Greg Macvean
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COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
Our theatres belong to the communities they serve, and we are always finding new ways to make people feel welcome and invited to take part in our creative activities. Throughout the year we offer opportunities for local engagement. Wherever possible we try and create opportunities for our audiences to be part of the action on our main stages and we’ve been extraordinarily lucky in the last year to be able to cast local ensembles for major touring shows.
We support our own choir, The Vintage Chorus, and our talks, tours and events programme ensures activity and engagement for all ages. Our work with the city’s amateur companies also encourages the people of Edinburgh to treat our stages as their own.
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Oh he loves it – he was practicing last night, dancing in the bedroom.’ Parent 19
Jam Piece breakdancing event. Photo by Phil Wilkinson
PLAY YOUR PART As a charity, we rely on the generosity of our supporters to make programmes like these possible. You can find out more about supporting this work by visiting edtheatres.com/support or contacting Lucy Clement, Development Manager on 0131 622 8087 lucy.clement@edtheatres.com For more about the work of the Festival and King’s Theatres visit edtheatres.com or contact Cerin Richardson, Head of Creativity and Diversity, 0131 622 8099 cerin.richardson@edtheatres.com Scottish Charity Number: SC018605
Thanks to all our supporters
Our Patrons & Friends Life Changes Trust Cash for Kids Cruden Foundation Limited Children and the Arts Bank of Scotland Foundation Cordis Charitable Trust Active Edinburgh Walter Scott RBS Comcab Inverarity Kempen Capital Management
Festival Theatre 13/29 Nicolson Street EH8 9FT King’s Theatre 2 Leven Street EH3 9LQ The Studio 22 Potterrow EH8 9BL edtheatres.com