Creating a world-class studio theatre and cinema

The Henry Travers studio will undergo significant renovations over the next five weeks - find out more below.

Press Release: £78k for ‘world class’ theatre & cinema at The Maltings, Berwick

The Maltings Theatre’s management announced today that a ‘world-class’ theatre and cinema studio will be completed and open at the theatre by 6 April this year.

The announcement follows the decision by the LEADER Coast and Lowlands Funding programme to award the project some £78,000, the full amount for which the theatre applied, which will be partially matched by The Maltings using funding raised by the Friends of the Maltings.

The design for the new studio includes retractable seating.

The redevelopment will see the existing Henry Travers Studio transformed into a state of the art 'black box' studio theatre and cinema, with a new Harlequin-made floor, retractable seating, new lighting and sound rig, new black-out curtains, and a new projector and screen.

This will mean the studio can be used for around 90 additional small- to mid-scale touring music, theatre and dance performances, as well as digital cinema screenings. It will also enhance the facilities available to the many local groups who use the space.

The new flooring will eliminate around 70% of the noise transference which has historically meant that the studio and the main house theatre cannot be used simultaneously.

The addition of retractable seating will mean the studio will present around 100 additional film screenings each year, consolidating The Maltings position as one of the North East's leading independent cinemas.

The current Henry Travers Studio space.

'The creation of a new performance and cinema space like this will result in The Maltings becoming one of the best equipped mid-scale theatres in the north of England,' said Chief Executive and Artistic Director Dr Miles Gregory, 'and we are extremely grateful to the LEADER fund for supporting  this exciting development which will change the way this theatre works forever.’

Attendance by the public at events in the studio is predicted to generate an additional £250,000 for the local economy, with the studio expected to attract attendances of around 8,800 in its first full year of operations. The project is fully supported by Northumberland County Council and Arts Council England, both of whom give regular annual funding to The Maltings.

Alison Clark-Jenkins, Regional Director, Arts Council England said, ‘This is excellent news for the Maltings. This investment will create a modern, purpose built performance space increasing the opportunities for the people of Berwick to experience great art.'

Ends

For further information contact:

Tamiko Mackie on 01289 330661 x 3 / tamiko.mackie[at]maltingsberwick.co.uk or Miles Gregory on 01289 330 661 x 7 / miles.gregory[at]maltingsberwick.co.uk

Full information on The Maltings Theatre & Cinema: maltingsberwick.co.uk

Download a copy of the annual report & accounts: http://www.maltingsberwick.co.uk/annual-report

The new Henry Travers Studio - a world-class space

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Our new frontage

Many of you may have noticed that we made some improvements to the front of our building late last year. 
For some time we'd felt that the entrance to our theatre was not really exciting or magical enough. In fact, I'd always thought it looked more like the entrance to a sports facility or a community centre.
The building was designed to be unobtrusive. A consultant described the portico in a report a few years ago as 'hiding under a baseball cap', which I felt was about right.
So we wanted to bring some more magic to it - make coming to the theatre more like a night out somewhere exciting, rather than visiting a sports centre. Not that visiting a sports centre isn't exciting... you know what I mean.


Originally, the entrance to our building looked like this. This was how it was left by the builders. It's pretty uninspiring, but it did good service for 10 years. The real problem is that it doesn't tell you what the building does. It could be anything - even, in fact, a Maltings.























This was how the frontage looked in 2008. The white sign was put up around 2001 as part of a revamp. But I thought it wasn't particularly successful, although it was certainly a step up from the original. The white background was unrelated to the dark building, and looked uncomfortable.

In 2009, we painted most of the garden-shed like exterior a heritage green, to make it feel a bit more interesting. We had no real budget for this - but it had to be done.


We painted the white sign background black, removed the star logo from above the i in Maltings, and painted the existing letters an off-white colour. We also painted the black pillars red. A bit more elegant. My father and I did the painting. Thanks Dad! The whole thing cost around £60 - the cost of the paint.

Around a year later, we felt that we should upgrade a bit further. We'd changed the trading name of the theatre from The Maltings Theatre & Arts Centre to The Maltings Theatre & Cinema, to better reflect the artistic programming of the venue. So the old lettered sign, which had done good service, had to be changed. Again, though, we had no money... as usual! So we had to be very inventive. 
I wanted to have something that gave the feeling of this:

But of course we couldn't afford that. Lights seemed to be the key though. Once again, we couldn't afford the cost of having an electrician fit an expensive custom-made marquee. In fact, we couldn't even afford the marquee! Then I remembered that we'd used some great open air festoon lighting for the Sideshow Festival in Berwick in August. I did some research, and we bought a 100 metres of exterior festoon lighting for £110. Then our technician Jimmy and I just tacked it up under the roof. 
So this is what the exterior looked like on day one.

Initially, I wanted us to put mirror tiles on the whole back wall of the entrance, where the clock is in the photo. Jimmy and I drove all over Berwick and found that nobody sold mirror tiles anymore. Too seventies. So we just got on with putting up the lights. It took about seven hours to tack them all up. Jimmy did a great job of making sure they were all lined up nicely. Finally, our then Technical Manager Neil wired the lights into one of the old arc-sodium fittings, after removing the old pair of lights (you just see the old lights on the roof just inside each of the red pillars in the photo above).
That afternoon I realised that we didn't need mirror tiles to create the reflection we wanted. We just needed a reflective surface. So we got the guys from Fantasy prints to cut and install some black perspex. This was the most expensive bit - £300. But it was worth every penny. Here's the guys installing it. Note the new festoon lighting tacked up onto the ceiling.

Thanks Fantasy Prints! You can see the new lettering in the background - all the letters are made of wood and bought online from PoshGraffiti for around £10 a pop. This was the cheapest possible option - and they were perfect.










At dusk, we turned the lights on for the first time - and it looked sensational. All for a total of around £610 and two days work. I reckon that's pretty good value for money for the result.

But when it's completely dark, the lights look even better. The reflection effect in the black perspex is superb.

We're still not completely finished. We need to re-gloss the lower part of the back wall of the entrance, where the 'Theatre & Cinema' letters are. But it's now just the magical and exciting entrance we wanted. Many thanks to my team for all their help.