investigation final

Between February 1st and March 16th, ticket sales dropped 14% and theatres saw a 19% drop in revenue. From March 17th to April 22nd, the time directly following the news of the complete theatre shutdown, ticket sales dropped by 93%, a drastic drop that plunged the industry into a perilous. Companies were forced to refund many months’ worth of sold tickets, and with the future so uncertain, many potential audience members were understandably reluctant to book tickets in the coming months. Graph courtesy of Statista.com. Graphic created on Canva For the theatre industry, it was a long wait any form of Government backed support scheme was announced, with the news finally coming in July 2020. The Government’s Cultural Recovery Fund meant that creative companies, along with companies from museums, galleries and stately homes, could apply for grants to help them to survive until they are allowed to fully reopen, but it wasn’t until much later in the year when the grants were given out. And whilst these recovery grants can only be considered good news for the industry, very little of this money has trickled down to the creatives and freelancers who make the industry tick with many having to find work elsewhere to make ends meet as many haven’t been able to qualify for any Government support. It was up to Arts Council England to distribute the money from the Government’s Cultural Recovery Fund, with over two thousand arts venues benefitting from the scheme. This graph illustrates the number of venues per region that were awards grants from the fund. It is clear to see that London had the majority of successful applications with many of the grants given going to London based venues. 639 venues in and around the capital were awarded these grants which do not have be repaid with 666 London venues taking a repayable loan. This goes to show the distribution of arts and culture venues around the United Kingdom, with many still considering London to be the centre of culture. Only 2 Scottish venues were successful in their grant application with 2 taking a repayable loan and only 1 in Wales being award a grant and 4 taking the loan arrangement. (Data correct of Friday 2nd April 2021, courtesy of Arts Council England)

Successful applicants RegionGrant amount in millions The lion’s share of the available funding also went to the venues based in and around the capital, as shown in this second graph, with £143,133,225 awarded in nonrepayable grants alone alongside. £82,896,969 in loans. In total. £691,843,679 was awarded to arts and culture organisations either as grants or loans between October 2020 and March 2021. Region

Over the summer of 2020, with help from this Government backed Cultural Recovery Scheme, some outdoor venues such as Cornwall’s Minack Theatre, Regents Park Open Air Theatre and Brighton Open Air Theatre were able to reopen with strict social distancing rules and regulations in place, and drive in cinema and car park live productions became popular. And as Christmas approached, traditionally a very important time for the industry as many venues often depend on an annual pantomime to bring in enough revenue to see them through to the following year, some indoor productions did manage to welcome back some socially distanced audiences in for an all too short period of time before the country was plunged into a third national lockdown. As it currently stands, it is hoped that the industry will begin to reopen its doors from mid-May with socially distanced audiences and could be back to full capacity by late June. But, of course, these dates could so easily change, but the industry is trying to remain optimistic, making plans for the future. Horrible Histories: Barmy Britain – Powderham Castle, Exeter – August 15th, 2020 The cast of Mischief Movie Night at The Minack Theatre, Cornwall – September 5th, 2020 Throughout the lockdowns, it has been a constant battle to keep the theatre industry alive, and creatives have remained determined to beat the odds and continue to bring theatre into our lives, even in a time when we have been completely unable to gather together and have that shared experience of live theatre in the more traditional way.

Before Coronavirus came into our lives, digital theatre wasn’t unheard of, but it was a lot less common. After all, if audiences could pack into an auditorium and show casts could perform as normal, the added expense and work that goes into putting a show onto the internet wasn’t necessary. In normal times, occasionally, professionally filmed productions would become available to watch on television through channels such as Sky Arts and archive recordings of productions such as ‘The Wind in the Willows’, ‘The King and I’, ‘Kinky Boots’ and ‘Miss Saigon’ have been shown in cinemas over recent years along with performances of ‘Everybody’s Talking About Jamie’ and ‘War Horse’ which were streamed live from London to our local cinema screens. With their venues closed and audiences unable to gather together as they normally would, companies up and down the country have been forced to re- evaluate how they work and approach theatre making in a new way. Hundreds of shows, concerts and special events have been made available online over the last year, from professional archive recordings and content available on demand to live streamed performances. This enforced shift towards digital theatre has not only kept the theatre industry moving but has also allowed for much larger audiences to enjoy the content then would be able in a traditional performance venue. For example, in normal pre-covid times, a performance of ‘Showstopper: The Improvised Musical’ at London’s Garrick Theatre would sit an audience of 732, whereas nearly 1500 ticket holders tuned in to the company’s most recent livestream with tickets costing between £8 and £20 per device, with the audience given the option to choose what to pay with a polite message to please pay more if you can. Another example of just how many tickets can be sold for online productions, over 26 performances between December 2020 and February 2021, over 250,000 tickets were sold at £10 per device to ‘Mischief Movie Night In’, with a special midnight performance added to cater for audiences in different time zones.

Content made available online over the last year or so has included highly ambitious and innovative new productions by the Barn Theatre, Cirencester, Wise Children and Lambert Jackson Productions, to name but a few and archive recordings of various productions from over the years including ‘One Man, Two Guvnor’s’, ‘From Here to Eternity’, ‘The Grinning Man’ and ‘Curtains’ etc, to live streamed performances from popular improv comedy groups Showstopper and Mischief Theatre. With all of this made available either for free with the option to make a donation or a set ticket price, fans missing out on the joys and thrills of live theatre have been spoiled for choice. But how has it worked? How has been for those companies desperately jumping through hoops to make theatre happen in the midst of a global pandemic? And what do the audience really think of digital theatre? Bryony Corrigan and Niall Ransome in ‘Fraud of the Blings’ – Mischief Movie Night in Live Stream – February 21st, 2021 ‘There’s an old saying that necessity is the mother of invention’ In April 2021, Matthew Harvey’s song cycle ‘Now or Never’ premiered as an ambitious single-take live stream from the Barn Theatre, Cirencester, and this was just one example of the lengths creative teams have gone too in order to be able to continue to bring live entertainment into our homes. Faced with the unprecedented challenges of a global pandemic including testing and social distancing, necessity has seen the art of theatre making approached in never seen before ways.

The Barn Theatre, Cirencester, has been one of the companies leading the way in pursuing digital theatre and has been celebrated for the productions it has managed to put out over the last year. Laure Earwaker, a member of the Barn Theatre at Home team, talked to us about how the company has managed to continue to work over the last year and how it has been to move from creating theatre for live, in-person, audiences to creating content for online platforms.

Actor Aaron Sidwell, who worked with The ‘Creating for an online audience was Barn on ‘Bard from the Barn’, tells us his completely different. Firstly, it’s a visual thoughts on working in digital theatre. medium. So, your mechanism for story telling is completely different. Secondly, you’re trying to appeal to a completely open market. At the point of creating ‘Bard from the Bard’ we were targeting an audience who had next to nothing original to see. So, we had to try and entice them with short punchy content that grabs their attention visually within the first 30 secs. With theatre, people have already signed up to an evening’s entertainment when they walk through the door, so you can slowly feed them the story.’

Live streaming has played a huge role in allowing theatre to continue during the ongoing shutdown, and an immense amount of work has gone into making it possible. The team at ‘Showstopper: The Improvised Musical’ are used to performing to sold out audiences in packed theatres, but with this impossible, they have instead created ‘Showstopper: The Socially Distanced Live Streamed Musical’, performing live to ticket holders via YouTube. The company are tested before the show and are socially distanced in their own little pods in the performance space with their own prop boxes to prevent mixing. The show is then filmed and edited live, with one member of the company on the chat with viewers taking suggestions and another passing those suggestions onto the performers. I spoke with Adam Meggido, director of Showstopper, about how it has been to change the way in which the company operates and how it feels to take part in these socially distanced live streamed shows as opposed to their regular theatre shows to live in person audiences. Justin Brett, Phillip Pellow, Pippa Evans and Adam Meggido perform ‘In the Heist’ – Showstopper: The Socially Distanced Live Stream Musical – October 16th, 2020

Alex James Ellison also took advantage of live streaming becoming much more common and popular when he reunited the cast of his 2019 hit musical ‘Fiver’ for a concert performance, streamed live from the Southwark Playhouse

Audience reaction to digital theatre But what do audiences think of online theatre? Has it been a suitable substitute whilst we remain unable to physically go to the theatre? How much have people watched online in comparison to what they would normally watch in person, and is the online theatre experience worth the ticket price? When doing anything online, you are faced with the possibility of technology letting you down, and for many of those who took my survey, tech issues did impact on their attempts to watch theatre digitally with the biggest issue being the stream freezing or jumping. Nevertheless 70% of those surveyed claimed that they would continue to watch online content once theatres have reopened. The average price of £20 for an online theatre production is more than half the average ticket price for an in person show, making it much more accessible in comparison

Number of shows seen From my personal viewpoint, I have been pleasantly surprised by the amount of quality content that has been made available to view online over the last year and I have watched a lot that I have really enjoyed. I have also watched many shows that I perhaps would not have chosen to watch live for a much higher ticket price. This only goes to prove that due to lower ticket prices, and the fact that you can watch a show without the concerns of travel and possible need for accommodation, digital theatre has proven itself to be much more accessible than theatre in its traditional form. In pre- Covid times, on average, I would see around 35 live theatre productions a year, give or take, spread between touring productions and West End shows. With the amount of content made available online, I actually managed to watch much more last year, something that I had not been expecting to happen. 2019 In 2019, I saw 38 live theatre productions, with spikes in February, June, August and December highlighting my normal annual trips to London, in which I try to see as many shows as possible during my stays. In 2020, I did manage to see a handful of in person productions, including one trip to London in February before the first lockdown and a few socially distanced productions between the lockdowns, but the vast majority of productions I saw in 2020 were viewed online. There was a slow growth in the amount of content available online in 2020, with peaks in the mid-summer and festive season. Over Christmas, many companies made archive recordings of previous pantomimes available which made for popular family at home viewing alongside a multitude of festive concerts. December also saw the beginning of the run of ‘Mischief Movie Night in’

Number of shows seen 2020 Over the last year, I have watched shows online that were both pre-recorded and streamed live and I have to admit that the live streamed productions did blur the line between digital and traditional theatre, making for an ever more enjoyable experience. When I spoke to Adam Meggido from ‘Showstopper: The Improvised Musical’ he talked about the idea of a big part of theatre being the experience of sharing time and space with an audience, and how important he feels it is to continue with live work in order to continue to share time with an audience whilst we cannot share space, something that works especially well with improvised pieces such as the shows created by Showstopper and Mischief Theatre. Adam Meggido explained that whilst an audience will still get enjoyment from watching something that is pre-recorded, you lose ‘anything could happen’ feeling you get from watching a live performance as something that is being recorded in advance can be stopped and reshoot, like a film. With live performance, especially improvisation, there is that thrill of watching something happen, or watching something new being created, in real time. With the live stream shows produced by Showstopper and Mischief Theatre, there has also been a social interaction element which those watching at home encouraged to join a group chat during Showstopper performances and sending in suggestions for characters and scenes to Mischief before their shows and live tweeting during. This works to build a community that is normally formed in the shared space of an auditorium, something that theatre fans have been missing since theatres were forced to close. This interaction is a big part of the marketing campaigns for these live streamed shows, they thrive off of fans talking to each other and sharing a love for the shows. What does the future hold for digital theatre? As performers and creatives look forward to being able to reopen theatres, we have to look towards the future and question the role that digital theatre will play in it. At the beginning of the pandemic, it was easy to look at online theatre as an alternative, as the best we could get at the time and just as something to keep us going until we could get back into a theatre in person, but as the time has gone on, it’s become much more than that.