A vision for uk touring theatre 2016–2021Strategic Development Plan

Who we are and why we do it 3

A note from Alastair Whatley

The people 4

The numbers 5

Theatre that works, for the whole of the UK 6

What does original theatre look like?

2016–2021: #storieseverywhere 8

Programming: building on strengths and taking new risks

Shaping the conversation: the #storieseverywhere campaign

Funding

Partnerships and co-productions

Working with our audiences

Working with our creative community

Development for success

Thank you

The vision 12

Contents

Birdsong

See How They Run

The Private Ear & The Public Eye

The Madness of George III

The Original Theatre Company, as the legend goes, was born out of a university bet. Drama student and aspiring director, Alastair Whatley, was told that he couldn’t stage his ambitious vision of Twelfth Night as a full-scale outdoor romp that would wow audiences, in a matter of weeks, and on a budget of £1,500.

Ten years later, and not only did Alastair manage to stage his Shakespeare dream (even if slightly scaled-down) with a cast of 11 at venues up and down the UK including The Lyric Hammersmith and a Welsh Cliff Top – but that was merely the first of 15 productions, each more rich and ambitious than the last. The Company is led by the twin arts of story-telling and performance, and over the decade has built a network of artists – actors, writers, directors and designers – who have developed their craft within a whole world of stories.

The Company has staged key works by Peter Shaffer, Timberlake Wertenbaker, Nicholas Wright, Alan Bennett,  William Shakespeare, R.C Sherriff and Brian Friel as well as adapted texts for stage, most notably Jerome K Jerome’s  Three Men in a Boat and Sebastian Faulks’ Birdsong.

The Company’s scale of operation may have changed in ten years, but the core aims and personal ethos have not: to work with brilliant people on brilliant stories that excite, entertain and challenge audiences. The vision is changing, from survival to leading the pitch, collaborating with large audiences and helping to shape the UK touring theatre scene. The mission is becoming more focused, more strategic in its business and creative objectives so that the most brilliant people get to shine and the most brilliant stories get told.

This short document sets out this new vision, for a thriving and vital arts business that is economically sustainable, making essential world-class theatre and leading the conversation about what works, what’s next and what success looks like.

A note from Alastair WhatleyFor the past 10 years, as Artistic Director of Original Theatre Company, I have been making and taking theatre into different regions across the UK. I can see that regional public arts funding is heading towards a crisis point. Arts venues are closing in local communities and there are an increasingly smaller number of touring companies who can afford to take good quality work on the road. Audiences are invited to take fewer creative risks with

what they see – and touring theatre is not seen as important, not vital, not something contemporary and relevant to talk about with friends.

Yet, touring theatre still has the unique responsibility of giving Great Britain access to stories and ideas proposed from different perspectives, places to come and be challenged, to hear different voices, to share stories with neighbours and to laugh long and loud. Of course, theatre is still thriving in London and the UK’s big cities – it’s a great time for story-telling – but is that inspiring if you live in a small town without ready access to transport or the inclination to travel for hours.

What was the last thing you saw in your local theatre? If it didn’t excite you, why not? If it did – great! Now- what would happen if everyone in your community could keep having experiences like that week-in, week-out? Good theatres bring people together. Good stories bring joy and reflection and memories, and they remind us about the very great power we have as people alive today with beating hearts, emotions and passions. We have a vision to bring back great theatre to the regions with heart and ambition... but we need your help.

We want to take the best writers, actors and artists and make work that will ignite stages around the country. Not made for the West End, but made for Hull, made for Eastbourne for Basingstoke, for Darlington for Berwick- upon-Tweed and hundreds of other beautiful, vibrant UK towns. No compromises and no live screening in cinemas. Communication and collaboration has changed in the last ten years and we know that our voices and wishes can count for something.

We are asking now for your voice to join the voices of thousands of others. We are not asking you to save a sin-gle theatre, or a specific community or group, we are ask-ing you to stand up for original theatre in every town, for every community, for everyone. Demand more, engage more, tell the world about the stories that inspire you, and even the ones that don’t. Join us in celebrating the world around us. Thanks for all your support so far. 

Who we are and why we do it

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THE PEOPLE

As of the 2015/16 season:Artistic Director Alastair Whatley

Producer Tom Hackney

Associate Director Craig Gilbert

Associate Director Christopher Harper

Associate Artist Polly Hughes Siobhan O’Kelly

Friends Ambassador Guy Mainwairing-Burton

Development Consultant Richard Freeman from always possible

Shakespeare’s R&J

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THE NUMBERS

14 plays, 15 productions,

18 tours

784 performances in

65 venues since 2013

250,000 tickets sold

in last 2 years

Not a penny of public subsidy since 2012

HHHHHfrom What’s On Stage, Three Weeks, The Public Reviews and The Good Review

HHHHfrom The Times, The Telegraph, The Daily Mail, Manchester Evening News, Libby Purves, The Scotsman, The Express and The Sunday Telegraph

CRITIC’S CHOICEThe Telegraph and The Times

Dancing at Lughnasa Twelfth Night

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THEATRE THAT WORKS, FOR THE WHOLE OF THE UK

What does original theatre look like?We have demonstrated the capacity to engage audiences across UK and Ireland – from large playhouses to school halls. The shows have been a mix of contemporary and classical, rooted firmly in familiar stories told well. Mark Shenton, Theatre Critic for The Stage, put it best when he said “touring theatre companies often reach the parts of the country that others don’t – and sometimes they also reach the plays that others miss” – about our 2013 production of The Private Ear & The Public Eye. Production choice is everything and it is our pogramming that audiences keep on trusting.

An Original Theatre Company show will always be text-based and visually rich. Our shows will not be shoe-boxed into a generic style, and every director has full creative freedom. The “play’s the thing” and we will always put the playwright first. Our vision is to create both intimate chamber pieces and barnstorming, foot-stomping total theatre in equal measures. We will tailor

the production to the play, always, always giving audiences something to talk about and think about .

Our work is forged through collaboration, as artists and creators, but also with the venues we perform in and the audiences we perform to. We have been privileged to co-produce plays with exciting playhouses, such as South Hill Park in Bracknell, the Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds, Eastbourne Theatres, The Yvonne Arnaud in Guildford and the Haymarket in Basingstoke. Jon and Anne-Marie Woodley, as Birdsong Productions, have in recent years brought commercial production values to the larger Original Theatre Company shows, and it is a relationship that continues to break successful new ground.

The Original Reads programme, developed by associate Christopher Harper, has enabled actors and writers to meet and explore new ideas through an Original Theatre Company lens. New scripts are tested through monthly workshops with professional actors at RADA, a process that has already led to the development of two full Original Theatre Productions for 2016/17. 

“ Original Theatre Company has proved to be one of the most successful and exciting regional touring companies in recent years. The company has produced a number of artistic and commercially successful productions. Playing to large numbers of people, the works have been distinctively powerful and a cultural experience for our audiences. At the heart of everything Malvern Theatres believes in, this company reflects in the passionately held belief that regional audiences expect and deserve the very best quality of work.”

Nic Lloyd Chief Executive, Malvern Theatres

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“ The Original Theatre Company is a regular visitor to Salisbury Playhouse both because of the quality of their productions and the fact that they sell extremely well. A delightful and highly professional company to deal with.”

Sebastian Warrack Executive Director, Salisbury Playhouse

Our Country’s Good

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2016–2021: #storieseverywhere

We will significantly increase our artistic output year-on-year, between 2016 and 2021, with the aim of sustaining three simultaneous touring productions at any given time.

SummaryTier One productions: biggest budget co-productions, focused on the revival of big stories by much-loved story-tellers. These shows continue to demonstrate the Original Theatre Company knack for creating bold drama and big images in playhouses around the UK.

Tier Two productions: exquisite productions for medium-sized venues, smaller creative teams reworking forgotten shows, new text adaptations or reviving contemporary plays that have enjoyed success in just one theatre space.

Tier Three productions: the smallest, most experimental OTC shows, developing new ideas and multi-faceted story-telling techniques. Shows built for studios and found spaces, these productions dare to test unfamiliar stories some of which may eventually become tier two or tier one shows.

Shaping the conversation: the #storieseverywhere campaignMid-scale touring theatre is reaching a critical lowpoint in the UK – in both confidence of programming and funding – and has lacked a strategic vision from

Programming: building on strengths and taking new risksOver the next two years, we will start to develop a three-tier approach to programming and commissioning.

We will continue to create big, bold dramas with beautiful design for big playhouses in UK cities and towns – working in partnership with Birdsong Productions and a range of producing venues around the UK. We will provide roles for inspirational directors and actors whose track-records demonstrate world-class craft and invention. We will build on a reputation for re-imagining classic texts and reviving powerful plays from the British, European and international canon.

However, our new vision is to produce three different kinds of theatre, for audiences in the regions that have always traditionally been more limited by choice. We will continue to create large-scale dramas, building on the successes of Birdsong and Flare Path, that entertain and move audiences who enjoy big familiar stories, elegantly told. We will also concurrently produce a second tier of production, light on its feet and innovative in its staging, following the successful creative risks of Three Men In A Boat and See How They Run – with space for newer pieces of writing and new directing talent, including co-productions with smaller venues. The third branch of Original Theatre will be for brand new studio pieces, bold new work that experiments with form, style and content; we will be able to develop new audiences, working with universities, pop-up theatres, found spaces and fringe venues.

“ We look to The Original Theatre Company to provide our audiences, current and new, with good productions of contemporary writing – work that resonates with as well as challenges their own experience of 21st century living.”

Sarah Holmes Chief Executive, Ipswich New Wolsey Theatre

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collectives of companies or from national arts and funding institutions. There are clear signs that this is being addressed, and it is time that Original Theatre Company is part of any big conversations.

Alastair Whatley has been Original Theatre Company’s Creative Director since founding the organisation in 2005. In the ten years since, he has been producer, director, publicist, bookkeeper, tour-booker, actor and understudy. Alastair’s attention to detail has enabled the Company to take continual calculated risks that have ended up breaking new ground with each production; he can also recall the box office takings and audience numbers for every performance in every venue going back years. He has built a touring theatre empire from scratch, and has developed a leading approach to what does and doesn’t work in the sector.

Our #storieseverywhere campaign will see OTC shaping policy and understanding at a strategic level, nationally, sharing the Company’s successes and challenges. We will be opening out our collaborations and influence, working more closely with our audiences in areas such as programming, funding and debating the role of stories in asking important questions. We will work closely with the Arts Council England, commercial producers and the subisidised sector to create work with bite and productions with impact.

We will be building a UK-wide theatre community, both physical and online, giving audiences greater access to the mechanics of theatre-making, to innovative ticket pricing schemes and to helping us choose which plays we produce. We will work with venues to build partnerships of dialogue, demonstrating the love and need for story-telling outside of the UK’s big cities.

OTC has relied very little on funding from Arts Council England (ACE), with just a small amount of investment in the development of Three Men And A Boat in 2012, which became three profitable UK tours. We have staged 784 performances (and counting) without a penny of public subsidy, but this isn’t sustainable if we want to achieve our ambitions. We understand the risks of a business model heavily dependent on public subsidy, particularly those susceptible to the ebbs and flows of government policy and spending cuts, and we believe we are effectively building a mixed-income system that balances investment from private and public sources, commercial activity and ongoing support from Friends and members.

As we continue to build our role as a leading voice in the UK touring theatre scene, we want to work more strategically with ACE and the strategic touring team to help shape the national offer to the regions. In October 2015, it was announced that a full ‘mapping of the UK theatre landscape’ will take place in advance of the new strategic allocation of funding in 2018, acknowledging that the way that theatre companies engage with audiences is changing and that engagement with theatre outside of London is a fraction of what it could and should be. OTC will ensure that it is part of that process and that our vision for a more diverse programme of traditional and contemporary story-telling is represented as part of the consultation.

In order to build the fully three-tiered programming model, with a mix of commercial and non-profit productions, we will seek National Portfolio Organisation (NPO) status with ACE in 2018, offering a sustainable model of theatre-making that is still supported to take creative risks and to create work of artistic and cultural merit for a truly national audience.

Birdsong Flare Path

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FundingOur larger productions will continue to be developed through a commercial model, working with industry co-producers and creating financial reserves from which new productions can be developed. A fraction of our work has relied on public subsidy to date. We believe in sustainable arts business, with efficient financial management that does not compromise quality and pays staff fairly and competitively.

We will work with the Arts Council England, company Friends and members, with charitable foundations and with philanthropists as investors on our mid-scale productions, working with new texts and ideas that have proven to work in a single venue and giving them a national visibility. We will be taking new theatre to regional audiences, co-creating work with innovative venues and production houses across the UK, bringing younger audiences into regional theatres and giving new platforms for emerging talent, backed by the Original Theatre Company quality kitemark.

We will be crowdfunding new productions, core company infrastructure and new research & development, starting in Winter 2015 when we launch the #storieseverywhere social media campaign. Our mission is to connect more closely with our existing core audience and new ones, giving opportunities for theatre supporters to be involved in the whole Original Theatre Company world. At least one show each year will be part-financed by prospective audiences, and by individual and business donors who believe in the development of the work. Donors will receive advanced tickets, access to rehearsals, workshops, training and merchandise.

We want to start developing partnerships with carefully selected corporate partners, who share our vision for thriving cultural conversations in every part of the UK.

Partnerships and co-productionsOriginal Theatre Company has enjoyed co-producing shows with some of the most innovative and exciting arts venues in the UK: Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds; Yvonne Arnauld, Guildford; Farnham Maltings and South Hill Park, Bracknell to name just a few.

We want to reach out wider, working with national theatre venues to take provocative new stories on the road as well as collaborating with power-houses of regional theatre such as the Bristol Old Vic and Yorkshire Playhouse. We want to work with drama schools, universities and charities, think-tanks, businesses and community groups to take the simple art of story telling into new spaces of thought.

Working with our audiencesThe Original Theatre Company is changing its relationships with audiences.

OTC shows have broad appeal, but engagement and outreach will now focus more on encouraging new communities of audience members to engage with regional touring theatre, principally:

• students and young professionals aged 16–30

• people with Black-African and African-Caribbean, Asian, Middle Eastern and Eastern European backgrounds

• people with disabilities, learning difficulties and mental ill health

• increasing long-term relationships with schools, colleges and training providers through improved education resources and workshops

A re-vamped membership scheme will build a community of Friends, who will have a say in programming decisions, will be invited to key company events and production

“ We have been delighted to witness the growing and well deserved reputation of The Original Theatre Company as a major contributor to touring theatre. Such high quality productions are essential to keep our audiences coming to drama in the future”

Christine Bradwell CEO, Anvil Arts

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launches, will help to fund shows through crowdfunding and private investment and will be a part of the company’s development over the next 5 years.

Working with our creative communityProgramming and concept-building will stick to a core value of doing what’s valuable and important, not what’s fashionable. With our new approach to programming, we will have greater freedoms to tackle stories that connect with all sections of society. We will produce texts that include strong female characters, ethnically diverse characters and characters with disabilities. This is not because we feel we should tick boxes, or because it is expected, but because some of the UKs best actors are shut out of regional theatre casting due to the way much casting is traditionally done. We want the best actors to work with us, so we need to create roles for the best actors – whatever they look like – to play.

We will champion emerging actors, writers, directors, casting agents and designers – building on our existing long-term relationships with rising stars Siobhan O’Kelly, Chris Harper, Craig Gilbert, Liam McCormick, Emily Bowker, Polly Hughes, Alan Valentine, Victoria Spearing and many others. Producer Tom Hackney has been working tirelessly to develop our relationships with UK regional theatres, putting our work at the heart of their programing every year.

Our regular company of actors and technical associates will help shape the future of the company, finding new stories to tell and new ways to tell them through the establishment of a creative development workshop group.

Development for successFor the company to be sustainable and to remain financially secure, there needs to be significant

investment in the core infrastructure. Some of key company posts, Creative Director; General Manager; Finance Manager and Administrator need to become permanent, salaried roles with job security and training and development plans. Internal marketing and education programming roles need to be developed and built-in to long-term company strategies.

The core infrastructure needs investment with the case for £150,000 per year of new revenue by 2021 that is not directly linked to production budgets. This is a big challenge and needs to achieved in stages. New commercial activity, investment, asset management, membership schemes and licensing deals will form part of a strategy for sustainability.

We know that the majority of our audiences choose to see our shows because they are familiar with the venue, because they know the story or because they recognise some of the lead actors. Our task is to ensure that the company name is synonymous with quality, bold, exciting theatre and that any show with the Original Theatre Company stamp will be a really valuable experience.

Thank youA huge thank you to all of the creative teams, audiences, co-producers, back-stage staff, audiences and friends that we have had the pleasure of getting to know in the first ten years.

The next ten years are going to be so much more exciting.We can’t wait to take you with us on this journey with us.

Please tell us what you think of our vision, and how you would like to get involved.

originaltheatre.cominfo@originaltheatre.com

@originaltheatre

The Private Ear & The Public Eye Journey’s End

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The Vision

We believe that:• the best theatre in the UK doesn’t have to be in London

• the play’s the thing: everybody, everywhere deserves good stories

• regional arts venues are at their best and most innovative when full of people

• high quality, high impact touring theatre is worth fighting for, at every level

We will:• give audiences greater influence over our funding and

the way we tell great stories

• create touring theatre that is both commercially successful and artistically ground-breaking

• lead greater collaboration – between artists, audiences and venues

• develop new and emerging creative talent as much as we champion the well-known and much-loved

“The Original Theatre Company has been a brilliant platform for me to explore and embrace a variety of complex

characters and tour the length and breadth of the UK. I have travelled from Berwick Upon Tweed to Exeter and loved every minute of it.”Siobhan O’Kelly, Actor

“The Original Theatre Company’s commitment to high quality theatre is undeniable. The energy and enthusiasm with

which they continue to bring their work to as wide and diverse an audience as possible is, in our times of cuts and commercial imperatives, positively inspirational. They know people need stories and they are determined to tell them.”Philip Franks, Actor

originaltheatre.cominfo@originaltheatre.com

@originaltheatre The Original Theatre Company