Belgrade Theatre Annual Report 2020-2021

Thank you to our supporters The Belgrade Theatre Trust is a registered charity (number 219163)* and relies on support we receive from generous individuals and organisations.

Those who support our work enable us to continue to develop our artistic, community, educational and talent development work – so thank you.

“We really appreciated

the effort everyone had gone to in making this performance.

Whilst it wasn’t the same as being in your amazing theatre it made our Christmas this year feel a little more normal”

£70,620 raised in donations, grants, corporate support and

memberships - enabling us to provide amazing opportunities, including;

390 Making Memories tickets for our Jack and the Beanstalk online and Twirlywoos Live, supporting 91 local families (including NHS/Care Staff) facing challenging circumstances.

The Belgrade Theatre gratefully acknowledges financial support from all of our individual members and corporate supporters during 2021/2022. We would also like to thank our 2020 Redevelopment Project supporters including: Coventry City Council; Coventry and Warwickshire Local Enterprise Partnership; Department for Culture, Media and Sport; Arts Council England;

Audience member on Jack and the Beanstalk on-line

and 650 incredibly kind donors who raised an amazing £508,468 in support of our capital project.

The 29th May 1961 Charitable Trust For more information, please visit:

www.belgrade.co.uk/support

Board Members:

Belgrade Theatre Trust (Coventry) Limited (A company limited by guarantee)

Mr S Fergusson, Chairman Ms Sheila Bates Cllr Roger Bailey Mr Paul Carvell Mr Nathan Dodzo Mr W H Glen LLB Ms Annette Hay

Mr David Hanson (joined June ‘21) Mr A F Pollock Ms K J Reid BA Hons Mr A C Skipper Ms Rebecca Warwick Mr Jon Wilby Ms N C Daley (joined June ‘21)

Honorary Ambassadors: Mr David Burbidge Mr David Shortland

Company Secretary and Executive Director : Ms K J Reid BA Hons Chief Executive and Artistic Director: Mr W H Glen LLB Funding Body Representatives entitled to attend Board meetings: Arts Council England West Midlands - Mr Tom Wildish (Relationship Manager), Coventry City Council - Mr D Cockcroft (Assistant Director, City Centre & Development Services)

Charity registered number 219163

Company registered number 593331

Registered office: Belgrade Theatre Belgrade Square Coventry West Midlands CV1 1GS

Photos: Jess Milner, Ed Waring, Chloe Ely & Nicola Young

*We are committed to being open, honest and transparent adhering to the Fundraising Promise and the independent regulator of charitable fundraising.

Celebrating Coventry together through theatre Review of the Year 2020/2021

DIRECTORS’ LETTER

CHAIRMAN’S LETTER

As I write this, the Belgrade is at last opening its doors after lockdown. History may not repeat

itself, but it sometimes rhymes! In December 1666 Samuel Pepys, an addicted theatre goer (he would often write, guiltily, that he neglected business to see a play) was at last able to return to the King’s Playhouse in Drury Lane, closed by London’s Great Plague since the previous June, to see Beaumont and Fletchers The Mayds Tragedy. In a prescient comment he wrote in his diary ‘...I sat with my cloak about my face...’ and feeling that play going was still a dangerous and unbecoming pastime ’...I was in mighty pain lest I should be seen by anybody to be at a play...’

As in 1665/6, this has been a tough year for theatres and the Belgrade had to cancel all live shows including the popular and lucrative pantomime. Our business model is based on healthy commercial revenues, primarily box office, to support external grants to fund such strategies as Belgrade’s own productions, community projects and talent development almost overnight we were thrown into a major financial crisis.

We had to reduce our costs and lost 16 permanent posts as well as casuals.

And of course the independent creative people we support, who are the life-blood of the performing arts, were hit hard.

Three things kept us going. The hard work and loyalty of our staff, many of whom had to go on furlough or reduced hours. Culture Recovery Fund grants of nearly £1.5 million. Then there was money to allow us to develop work for Coventry’s City of Culture. The centrepiece of this work was the KEYS project. This was inspired by the story

of Ira Aldridge, a young AfricanAmerican actor, who came to Coventry in 1828 to manage a short season of plays at the old Coventry Theatre. Not even 21 years of age, he became the country’s first theatre manager of colour at a time when slavery was still widespread throughout the British Empire.

To honour this unusual event, Hamish Glen wanted to ‘hand the keys’ of the theatre over to the next generation of young and diverse theatre-makers.

Corey Campbell, Balisha Karra and Justine Themen were appointed as Co- Artistic Directors of the Theatre for 2021, bringing with them a unique perspective that celebrates Coventry’s diversity and drives positive change.

The three Co-Artistic Directors have driven the City of Culture programme of work with their own individual projects, as well as learning from Hamish about the processes and challenges of running a major venue.

There were other silver linings to this dark cloud. The lockdown meant we were able to steam ahead on the final phases of the theatre’s redevelopment with a new bar and café facility. Crisis can also stimulate innovation. We moved work online with, for example, a digital version of our pantomime Jack and the Beanstalk, we expanded our programme of film screenings and presented some live work whenever regulations allowed. These are approaches that will become a fixed part of our output when the crisis passes.

This is my last report for the Belgrade as I stand down as Chairman at the end of September 2021 and hand over the reins to David Hanson. Our Chief Executive and Artistic Director, Hamish Glen and the Executive Director, Joanna Reid will also leave the Theatre in March 2022. They have built a thriving and innovative regional theatre over the last 18 years and it is an enjoyable privilege to have been involved with them and the Theatre for eight of those years.

Stewart Fergusson Chairman July 2021

Vision: Together, with the diverse communities across Coventry and the region, we aim to enrich and fundamentally change people’s lives for the better through theatre.

Mission: In our landmark building, across the region, the UK and online, we will use theatre to entertain, inspire, share the city’s stories, uncover hidden histories and unleash the creativity in our communities.

L-R: R: Joanna Reid, Corey Campbell, Balisha Karra, Justine Themen & Hamish Glen

The year was extraordinarily challenging and our thanks must go to the staff

for rising so well to this unprecedented set of circumstances and to our audiences for sticking by us. The Belgrade was necessarily closed to the public from March to July 2020, but took every opportunity to open when allowed and opened a new takeaway Café in June, a Café in the foyer in July, hosted groups and presented some performances before the second lock down in October 2020. We also worked hard to keep our audiences engaged online throughout. So although the building was then closed until 17 May 2021 we remained active online, including our first digital pantomime Jack and the Beanstalk by Iain Lauchlan and Sugarswell Studios, which was viewed digitally around the world, by around 14,000 people.

Also online was our Coventry Blitz play One Night in November, a New Year’s Eve celebration of live music So Long 2020 and Jabala and the Jinn, a co-production with Turtle Key Arts for young audiences.

Thanks to Cultural Recovery Emergency Funding administered by Arts Council England, we were able to deliver 11 performances of 5 live productions between lockdowns; we welcomed another 550 hosted group visits; sold 4,829 tickets for online events with an estimated audiences of 19,537; and provided 3,260 participation opportunities.

Throughout 2020 we also launched a brand new website, started a Media Academy for young at risk, schools and emerging artists, progressed with developing the former Jag pub into a ground-breaking digital space and completed our 2020 Redevelopment Project, including an upgrading of our Main Stage.

Initiatives to reduce our carbon footprint were introduced and we expanded our catering facility, consisting of a newly designed café and Nineteen 58 bar.

Our three diverse 2021 Co-Artistic Directors, Corey Campbell, Balisha Karra and Justine Themen and 2021 Senior Producer Samir Bhamra, began to shape our ambitious City of Culture programme Handing Over The Keys funded by Coventry UK City of Culture, and also issued a solidarity statement for Black Lives Matter, leading on the eradication of use of the term BAME. Pre-pandemic the Belgrade turnover was £6.5m, 75% of which was earned from a broad range of activities all of which relied on mass gatherings. As this disappeared the Theatre successfully secured government support through the furlough scheme and local authority grants, Kickstart funding, successful applications but still had to make some tough operational decisions to reduce overhead costs.

The Theatre has also announced a leadership restructure to take effect from 1 April 2022. It is mainly driven by the desire to embed the organisational changes from Handing Over The Keys to ready the Theatre for its next Arts Council National Portfolio Organisation (NPO) application (early 2022), but its timing has been accelerated by the ongoing financial pressures caused by the pandemic. The Theatre is strong and will recover earning levels fully. This will take time however, so action is being taken to further protect its future, so that it can continue to play, and grow, its central part in Coventry’s City of Culture legacy and cultural and community life going forward.

Hamish Glen Chief Executive and Artistic Director & Joanna Reid Executive Director