Auditions for The Tempest will be held on Saturday, 23rd of July, 2011 at the Trinity Arts Centre, Church Road.
trinity arts centre
Trinity Arts Centre
Wednesday, 13 July 2011
Bard in the Park (2011)
Friday, 24 June 2011
Volunteers the secret to Trinity's turnaround
A little over two years ago, the Trinity Theatre arts centre was in a funding crisis and faced closure.
But in a remarkable turnaround the converted Grade II-listed church in Tunbridge Wells has increased audiences by 85 per cent and become a widely-loved cultural asset to the town.
Despite losing funding from the Arts Council and Kent County Council, the 279-seat theatre and gallery space has made a profit for the last two years and self-generated income is now 83 per cent of its turnover.
Lovers of the arts are now able to enjoy a vastly varied programme that includes theatre, cinema, comedy, music, dance and exhibitions.
Michael Elliot, artistic consultant and trustee, John Martin, artistic manager, Darren Smallman, marketing manager, and Alex Green, venue manager, have been central to the restructuring that has transformed Trinity.
The centre opened in 1982 after the church, designed by Decimus Burton and completed in 1829, was saved from demolition by the Civic Society and Tunbridge Wells Drama Club.
Mr Elliot, who was among the original founders, said: "For a period of 15 years we received grants from the Arts Council and we were, until 2008, a regularly-funded organisation. The Arts Council culled a lot of clients at very short notice and we were told we’d loose £77,000 a year.
"We lost half our funding at a stroke. Throughout 2008 we were really in crisis. We got a £30,000 adjustment grant from the Arts Council. But by the end of 2008 we were heading for quite a hefty deficit. It was at risk of closing, it could have been insolvent."
Like many arts centres across the country, Trinity had heavily-relied on public funding before the recession and cuts to government spending. It also received £25,000 from KCC and before 2008 around £90,000 from Tunbridge Wells Borough Council. In total, grant levels have fallen from £226,000 to £89,000, with the borough council providing the sole public funding.
Mr Elliot explained how Trinity’s board handed over running the centre to their finance director Stephen Mason, a local tycoon who specialises in management and financial markets.
He brought in a ‘business-led approach’ that got costs under control and stopped the theatre making thousands of pounds worth of losses through risky negotiations with performers.
They also started charging for the car park.
"Generally when theatres are in trouble they tend to do less and charge more for it by putting up ticket prices, but we did the exact opposite," Mr Elliot said. "We lowered our prices and did 20 per cent more performances.
"The reason we could do this is because of the secret of Trinity, which is our volunteer workforce. We have 150 volunteers at any one time; they are the ushers, box office staff, front of house managers. We could do more without incurring extra costs."
Its volunteer workforce has been Trinity’s saviour, but the board also imposed tight cost controls that saw many of its paid staff leave.
Mr Martin, who is responsible for the centre’s change in programming, said: "I had a simple strategy of putting on what people wanted to see. My passion is theatre and cinema they are the things that drive me as a person and that has influenced my programming."
Some concerns were raised that ‘popular’ shows would downgrade the centre’s output.
"What people want to see is not synonymous with rubbish," Mr Martin said and recent hits have included near sell-outs of the Crucible and Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, and an experimental production of Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men sold out.
Both Mr Martin and Mr Elliot, who has been a director of Kimberly-Clark and general administrator at the National Theatre, have business and artistic backgrounds.
"We are in show business," Mr Martin, a management trainer and coach who has been an actor, producer and director in Tunbridge Wells for 25 years, said.
"That must be kept balanced, if one gets out of kilter something goes wrong. We don’t let commerce overtake the art and we don’t let art overtake the commerce."
Stand-up comedy has also been attracting a younger age group to Trinity. The theatre has become a venue for top comics including, Michael McIntyre and Alan Carr, to preview their new work before massive gigs at places like the O2 Arena.
Theatre is still at the heart of what the centre provides, with professional shows and the Trinity Theatre Company (formerly the Tunbridge Wells Drama Club) staging four to five productions a year.
Mr Elliot said: "I’m a theatre man, but I’m also a businessman. The profit margins for cinema are 48 per cent, for theatre it’s 25 per cent.
"We have a cinema programme here that is defensible in artistic terms if you look at the spread of what we do, there is art house and world cinema. We are one of the few places locally where you can get that.
"It is very much a part of an arts centre. We still think of ourselves as a theatre and we are producing more than five productions a year."
There are big plans for the future of Trinity, which celebrates its 30th anniversary next year. The cinema is going digital this summer, which will also mean it can provide ‘alternative content’ such as live performances from Broadway, the Royal Opera House and the National Theatre. There are also plans for the building, which are remaining under wraps.
A three-year funding agreement with the borough council has also brought extra stability.
Marketing manager Mr Smallman said there was still work to be done to raise the profile of Trinity and what it provides.
He said: "There has been a big change in perception of what people think of the venue. But it is still a work in progress. Everyone loves the fact Trinity has so much going on.
"There has always been a focus on creating a collaborative art space for the town, where people can decide how much or how little they want to be involved and the aim is for that
to continue."
Mr Green, who came to work at the theatre as front of house manager straight out of university in 2009, added: "A remarkable change has occurred, over the last two years it has moved to being a more friendly environment that tries to engage with its customers and volunteers.
"There is a work ethic of being the best and it is an exciting place to be because we can see the changes that are occurring constantly, there are always improvements happening."
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