Marianne Locatori, chief executive of the Theatre Royal in Newcastle, is marking five years in her role and calling for the venue to receive the recognition it deserves. The Grey Street theatre, a charity, is part of an alliance with five other theatres across the country—in Birmingham, Norwich, Canterbury, Leeds and Wolverhampton—pressing the Government to acknowledge their success and make the case for financial support.
"There's no understanding of the impact we are having," she says of the unique working model shared by the theatres which formed RITA—the Regional Independent Theatre Alliance—in the summer.
Impact and collaborations
Alongside the Theatre Royal's focus upon bringing world-class theatre to Newcastle, there have been new collaborations, including Gerry & Sewell—a third of whose audiences was made up of new attendees—and the world premiere of Michael Harrison's musical Weird, which local schoolchildren were given a chance to see first, for free.
Both tied in with the theatre's aim to expand theatre opportunities. The upcoming Our Friends in the North, opening on October 15, is another new collaboration and will showcase talent from its Project A theatre training programme.
Other schemes—for commercial ventures and to open up more of the 1837 theatre more of the time—have included the opening of cafe-bars The Green Room and 100 Grey Street, which bring in valuable income.
Recovery and challenges
When Locatori took up her post in October 2021, it was a challenging time for theatres as they faced a slow recovery from the effects of the pandemic. "We were in a different place five years ago," she recalls. "I'm really chuffed with what we have achieved. Coming out of Covid was tough for us but in the last three years we've really achieved what we set out to do. The whole theatre team really care and are passionate about the theatre and the region."
But that hard work and success tends to go under the radar. Locatori explains that the unique working model shared by members of RITA—made up of the Theatre Royal, Birmingham Hippodrome, Norwich Theatre, Marlowe Theatre in Canterbury, Leeds Heritage Theatres and Wolverhampton Grand—falls down a gap between subsidised Arts Council-funded theatres and commercial ones, such as ATG in Sunderland.
Capital investment request
Sitting between the two, RITA's large-scale theatres all operate in a similar way: as non-subsidised, not-for-profit organisations which are self-financing. "It's a unique model," she says.
"For some years we've been getting a little bit frustrated that the Government and the DCMS—but the wider sector as well—don't understand this third way of operating—where we don't get subsidy but we are not commercial. We are charitable organisations, deliver impact in our communities and we self-finance that."
RITA, which estimates its members' combined economic impact to be £800m, wants to start that conversation. The theatres want to share their data, have that impact recognised and receive some support in return—occasional help, with a match-funding proposal on their part, to ensure that they can keep doing what they do.
Locatori points out: "We don't want an ongoing subsidy, our models work, but what we do need is capital investment. If we can have that to support our infrastructure, we can continue to be self-funding and financially self-reliant and be able to grow our organisation and grow the impact."
RITA has made submissions to the Budget asking for £60m across the six venues over a number of years. The sum is "just indicative of the capital needs of these organisations", she says. The idea is for "co-investment"—if the group receives capital funding, they would find match-funding and that would enable them to "continue to be financially self-reliable for the next 10, 20 years".
The theatre supports Arts Council-funded touring organisations such as New Adventures, Opera North and Northern Ballet. But theatres need investment—they miss out, for instance, on tax relief afforded to cinemas—and costs are rising. "The challenge still remains for both touring companies and venues—the costs," Locatori says.
"We've got people wanting to make brilliant shows—and they are—and people wanting to come to venues to see brilliant shows, and they are, but the costs of those are just being squeezed and squeezed. That is a challenge for everybody in the sector."
Many people are not even aware the Theatre Royal is a charity. It is proud of the impact it has upon the city, bringing added audience spending on transport, bars, restaurants and hotels. "Theatres have an economic impact; a social impact—bringing people together—and a cultural impact. I'm not sure there are many other sectors that hit all those three," Locatori says.
Recognition of the RITA theatre's third model way is only just starting, in terms of the regional Arts Council, for instance. Locatori says: "There is recognition there but the need is far greater."
