Bridging the Gap 2012

Bridging the Gap


Supported by ARC, Stockton Arts Centre, Theatre Royal Newcastle &
The Maltings, Berwick upon Tweed


Bridging the Gap is a project developed by ARC, Newcastle Theatre Royal and The Maltings
designed to contribute towards the creation of new theatre work within the North East
region.


In 2009-10, the three venues worked together for the first time to offer a joint package of
in-kind support to enable a North East based theatre company to develop and present a
new piece of work across the three venues.


Bridging the Gap in now entering its third year, having supported two companies to date:
Northumberland-based Rabbit Damage, who developed their show Wherever I Lay My Hat
in 2010 and INK Productions, who presented Wanting for Anghus in 2011.


We are now seeking an emerging professional theatre company, with experience of
producing at least one show, to benefit from this package in 2011-12.


What we can offer:


• Six weeks rehearsal space - two weeks at each venue as follows:
w/c 16 & 23 July 2012 Newcastle Theatre Royal
w/c 20 & 27 August 2012 ARC, Stockton Arts Centre
w/c 3 & 10 September 2012 The Maltings, Berwick


• Six performances - two nights in each venue as follows:
The Maltings (Henry Travers Studio) Fri 14 & Sat 15 Sept 2012
ARC (Studio) Tues 18 & Wed 19 Sept 2012
Theatre Royal (Learning Space) Fri 21 & Sat 22 Sept 2012


• Regular monthly ‘keep in touch’ meetings with venue representatives to offer
advice/support. Venue staff are also available to attend rehearsals/sharings/work in
progress to give feedback.
• Marketing support – extensive support available to develop a professional marketing
pack, to assist with selling work to other venues (if appropriate/desirable) and to
audiences. The company would be responsible for producing leaflets/posters, but
venues would support via distribution, press, direct e/mail, website and online
listings etc.
• Technical support – venues will provide a technician for the get in/performance days
(but not during rehearsal period); technical advice will also be available including
support to draw up technical specifications for the show.
• Box Office – full box office services available at all three venues to manage ticket
sales.
• Advocacy and PR – as the selected Associate Company for this project, all three
venues would act as ambassadors for the company’s work, both in the lead up to
the performances, and post-performance in terms of recommendations to potential
touring venues etc.


Additional opportunities:


As an Associate Company linked to the three venues the company would also be invited to:


• Attend events at all three host venues during 2012, to develop a shared
understanding around theatre with venue programmers and other staff
(complimentary tickets will be made available by venues)
• Participate in professional workshops and masterclasses organised by the host
venues where appropriate


Financial arrangements:


Rehearsal and performance space would be provided by the venues free of charge.
Box office monies would be split with the companies 60:40 in their favour. Ticket prices
would be agreed across all three venues, with an allocation of complimentary tickets for
both companies/venues for press and ‘showcasing’ purposes.


Selection Criteria:


• Artists must be living and working in the North East region (as defined by Arts
Council England)
• Applications must be made by professional theatre companies who have produced at
least one show (this project is not aimed at youth theatre groups or
undergraduates)
• We are looking for a company committed to making contemporary theatre (cast size
2+)
• This is not a funded initiative and the selected company must be self-supporting.
However, we can offer guidance with funding applications.


Timescale:


Closing date Mon 21 Nov 2011
Interview Wed 30 Nov 2011
Decision w/c 5 Dec 2011


For more information about the partner venues please visit www.arconline.co.uk;
www.maltingsberwick.co.uk; and www.theatreroyal.co.uk


Applications


If you are interested in applying please email us a proposal (max 2 pages) including details
about:
• Your company – who you are, what stage of development you are at, biogs of key
members, reviews of previous shows
• The show you would like to develop
• How you will fund it
• How you would benefit from Bridging the Gap, and why we should select you
• Some visuals to support your application


Please send your proposals to: annabel.turpin@arconline.co.uk

Working Day 2: The corridor moves on...

On Day 2, the team moved quickly to complete the corridor.

The side of the corridor facing into the studio has been double-boarded with plywood and plasterboard. It will also be padded internally with sound-reducing material. The side of the corridor facing towards Eastern Lane Car Park has been left open at the moment so that the theatrical installers, Black Light, can access it to run cabling when they come onto site on Monday 14 March.

At the moment the corridor looks like this:

The corridor is wide and bright. It's going to make a great place for displaying art exhibitions as it gets lots of natural light. It will be carpeted later in the month, and then painted in soft neutral colours to keep it bright and cheerful.

There's now a ten day break until the next contractors, Black Light, come onto the site on 14 March to complete a huge electrical and technical installation, including a whole new lighting grid, new house and working lights, new sound system, black-out curtaining, projector and screen installation etc etc etc. This work is expected to take around a week...

In the meantime, the whole space including the walls and ceiling, will be painted a matt black to stop distracting light reflections. This work will be carried out by an in-house Maltings team to save money... It's a big job, but we're looking forward to it.

Working Day 1: Work begins on the Henry Travers Studio, 28 February 2011

Work has commenced on the Henry Travers Studio. We're going to keep updating our blog as progress continues towards creating this world-class new venue.

So, we started with this:

At 7.30am on Monday 28 February, George Hepburn & Son, the first of our four contractors, arrived on site to commence the work. At that point, the Studio looked like this:

George's team of builders had arrived to build the new corridor on the right of the photo above. This corridor is essential to link Front of House with the dressing rooms, green room, orchestra pit and Main House Stage, so that people can access these areas while a performance or film is taking place in the studio.

You can see in the 3d image below the corridor and sound-reducing double-entry doors which George's team arrived to construct. The double doors at the centre top of the image are designed to create a 'sound-lock' to reduce the noise transference from a busy box office into the studio during performances and film screenings.

By the end of day one, the new corridor was taking shape:

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

View more presentations or Upload your own.

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.

The Playhouse comes to The Maltings

So we got the Projectors etc in finally on Wednesday, and here are some shots of the beautiful 1940s projector - which we removed from the projection room - in it's new home on our main stairwell landing. Enjoy - and pop in and say hello sometime.

The Projector in its doomed former home at The Playhouse.

Jimmy puts the final screw in - and the projector has a new home!
It does look a bit like he is milking it. But he's putting a screw in. Honest.

Save the Arts: David Shrigley Video

Save the Arts: David Shrigley Video

A short and charming video about the importance of the arts to our economy - and our lives.

Enjoy!

The last days of the Berwick Playhouse

Berwick Playhouse - originally a beautiful theatre opened in 1914 - is due for demolition next month. It's been closed since 2005, and in the last six years has slowly begun to demolish itself. 


Original photos show a rather grand building, with detailed plasterwork on the exterior, but all the plasterwork was cleared away years ago and replaced with an uninspired but no doubt practical render. 


Like most people who have lived in Berwick for some time, I have very good memories of going to see films at the Playhouse. Spittal Variety Group, who regularly perform at The Maltings, used the Playhouse for all their productions for many, many years. 


We were given the go-ahead recently to investigate the Playhouse to see if there were any items which The Maltings would like or which would be of some use to us.


So this morning, a small but intrepid band descended and had a look around for anything that could be saved from the demolition - for items that might give some continuity between the old and new theatres in the town. 

A Spittal Variety Group Pantomime in 1974 on The Playhouse stage.

It's terribly sad to see a theatre on its last legs. So our visit was not a high-spirited one, but more about seeing what could be saved - and marvelling at this once-beautiful building, now destined to disappear. 


There have been a number of theatres in Berwick-upon-Tweed. The Playhouse, Ceaser's Palace, the Berwick Theatre - and now there's just one. Almost all the great public buildings of the town are now flats - part of the relentless drive towards a future of individualism, where presumably we all sit in white boxes watching DVDs by ourselves. Nice.


So we donned hard hats and facemasks, and found a lot of dead pigeons, dust, mould and rubble. Plus three 1940s era projectors and some small items which had been missed when the building was stripped. You can see the biggest projector we salvaged on permanent display on the stairwell at The Maltings already - it was removed from The Playhouse at 1.30pm in three sections and installed at The Maltings at 1.50pm. It was very, very heavy.

Relief plasterwork in the foyer of The Playhouse at stalls level.

The foyer at The Playhouse, looking past box office to the stairs to stalls level.

The Berwick Playhouse. The floor has been dug up for some reason, and the perspex cinema screen shattered. Behind the hideous drop ceiling is a beautiful blue curved Edwardian ceiling, with scroll work and a high proscenium. Below the stage is the orchestra pit. The water damage has been very bad indeed and the roof is in a terrible condition.

An emergency exit from the stalls.

At stage left, there are some very small toilets. The sign reads "The management of the Playhouse and S.V.G. [Spittal Variety Group, the last theatre company to regularly use the theatre] will not be held responsible for the loss of any personal items such as jewelry - money - etc back stage during the production.' It is signed, but I can't make out the signature. [It's Alex Moor's signature apparently - Thanks Jenny!] SVG staged their last production at the Playhouse in 2004, I think.

Looking from the stage up the flytower to the grid - and past it, to the sky. 

At the rear of the stalls, this is what remains of the bar. Unusually, this bar was actually open to the stalls, possibly during performances? The sign reads: 'Please do not occupy seats or smoke in the bar during the show.'

The theatre from the stage. Obviously the interior is pitch black, except where the odd ray of light spills from holes in the roof, so it was a bit of a shock to see the colours on the walls. At the rear of the stalls is the bar. The circle is too badly rotten to allow access.

The projection room was the best preserved room in the building, containing this lovely projector. All the projectionists belongings lay where they had last been touched in 2005. A bit like the Mary Celeste, to be honest. It took us two hours to dismantle and remove the projector - to its new home on the main stairwell at The Maltings Theatre, a few hundred yards away. It was a little sad to be removing it, but if we hadn't it would have been destroyed in the demolition.

[John T says: "The control buttons on the wall in the projection box were used to alter the maskings on the screen for the different film formats the 3 slides hanging up were used to do this on the projector" Thanks John!]

The old powerboard in the projection room. 
[John T tells us: " The large wheel on the power board is the dimmer for the house lights that were in before that false celling was put in." Thanks John.]

This beautiful 1940s projector is now on display at The Maltings Theatre. It's nice that it has found a new home.

We found these two projectors in a cellar. They must have been replaced by the slightly more modern projector that stood in the projection room. 1940s, we suspect. [John T tells us: "the 2 projectors you found were replaced by the 1 in situ when single reel films came in, the 2 old 1's were powered by carbon arc and you had to watch them all the time to ensure the carbon rods stayed the right distance apart." Thanks John!] The projectors will be cleaned up and installed in The Stage Door Bar at The Maltings.

Many thanks to Jimmy, Cam, Gary and Brian Martin for their help - without which, all of these items would have ended up in landfill. Any comments, questions, memories welcome.

A Life In The Day of...Wendy Payn (Head of Youth Drama)

Wake up 8 am … HUNGRY … I love breakfast and I am usually starving on a Saturday because an 8 am start is late for me.

Wake up Charlotte, aged 20 could wake up herself but being a mum is a hard habit to break in the world of Wendy!

Breakfast – yummy!

9.20am Speed walk to work with Char – she’s a fast walker!

Collect the registers, check the studio for health and safety issues.

First class 10 am about 20 or so small bundles of energy bounce into the room – some try to bounce straight back out and some stick like Velcro to mum. Help arrives in the shape of Ross, whose head is usually on fire and Stacey, who likes to ‘sizzle’. Four million games later – it’s amazing how many games you can pack into an hour – it’s time to get the next lot in.

Second class 11am .. well it is supposed to start at 11.15 am but once we catch up on the week’s gossip, Katie’s latest key ring and guess who Rory is this week, it’s nearly break time! After break this group like to improvise – their imagination always amazes me .. this group passes too quickly 12.45pm and it’s time to board the submarine – but only if you can work out how to get on.

LUNCH  - Starving (again)! My slave Ross goes to get my LARGE LATTE and CHOCCY MUFFIN, while I jump on Box office to let the girls get their lunch. 

That latte on a Saturday is the best one of the week .. last class starts at 1.30pm but like the class before they come early and despite the fact that they are not supposed to speak to Ross or myself as it is our ‘lunch time’ … well that never works .. we all discuss what bizarre filling Ross has in his sandwich and then Danny pretends to be a dinosaur.

1.30pm – I am in the zone now and we get straight down to serious game playing, warm up, impro. Break time .. same discussion every week – what show are we doing this year? I always ask for their suggestions and so this year we are doing Star Wars Chitty, Glee, Over the Rainbow - on ice.

3.30pm there’s been a MURDER, usually on a park bench and so everybody leaves. Ross and I clean the studio and it’s amazing how far kids can get with one shoe and no coat these days.

I love Saturday Drama even after 20 years, no two Saturdays are alike. New people join us, some go, some come back. Group dynamic is constantly changing, watching, inspiring, caring, guiding, enthusing pretending to be a pirate, it’s all part of it.

I would rather do another 10 hours of Saturday Drama than go to Morrisons but that’s what comes next … maybe I could make Ross go …

A Life In The Day of...Tamiko Mackie (Marketing and Development Manager)

My alarm clock is set for eight o’clock but the ‘baby alarm clock’ goes off anytime from 5:30am onwards.  Some mornings, our daughter wants to play in her room with the radio on, but most of the time she wants to cuddle.  Recently, she’s figured out how to use the camera on my phone and takes pictures of her feet.  By the time we get up, it looks like a toy bomb has gone off.

My husband heads downstairs while I chase Ruby round her room to get her dressed, which she thinks it’s hilarious. 

By the time we get downstairs, Andrew has Ruby’s breakfast ready and is packing her lunch.  I seize my latte, dash out to the garden to put out birdseed for our feathered friends and have a quick fag. Then it’s time to pull on my coat, say my goodbyes and head out the door.  I’m a true night owl, not a morning person, so it’s great that the theatre is only a two-minute walk door-to-door. 

Once I arrive at the office at 10am it is a relentless rollercoaster ride, especially on Fridays.  I work in an open plan office with our Chief Executive and other staff, so it’s very lively.  There’s usually a constant stream of people stopping in and it can be hard to concentrate.  I scan my emails for anything urgent, then finish off the press release I’ve usually written the night before.  I attend the fortnightly heads of department meeting, then dash downstairs to the in-house radio studio in the basement to do our weekly ‘What’s on at The Maltings’ feature on Radio Borders live on air.  I’ll then grab a double latte from the Maltings Kitchen (the marketing department runs on caffeine).  I personally call each person that’s won tickets on Radio Borders in order to conduct a bit of market research.  If they’ve never been to The Maltings, I try and find out why so that we can break down those barriers in the future.  That kind of personal touch is really important to bring in new audiences and engage to with the community.

I spend a lot of time on PhotoShop creating posters and adverts.  If there’s time (ha!), I like to have one of the Box Office staff proofread what I’ve done – with so many show times and dates, it’s all too easy to get something wrong.   Some visiting acts don’t provide any print materials at all, which means that a poster and flyers need to be designed in-house.  I spend far too much time doing this, but it is important to get it right as the poster sells the show.  I also try and create a weekly poster highlighting the films we are showing - I also programme all of the films we screen, which I love. I am passionate about films and there is no reason that The Maltings shouldn’t be operating like a bonafide cinema – “everyone loves movies.”  It’s just going to take time for our audience to get into the habit of coming here to see films.

Lunch?  Lunch is for wimps.  More coffee.

Every seven weeks, the next quarter’s diary of events must be prepared from scratch.  This is the most enjoyable and most tortuous part of my job.  I did the last diary completely on my own and I estimate it took about 300 hours of work total.  I even stayed up for 2-1/2 days straight at one point.  All of the images for each show must be gathered, and the ‘copy’ must be written.  There is a lot of research involved and each description must be perfect, as the goal is to effectively sell each show to the maximum number of people it’s all about “bums on seats.”  No matter how many times we proofread, there’s always an inevitable typo or error and it drives me mad! 

Before I know it, the day is nearly gone.  I always feel really stressed because there’s more things added to my “To Do” list than I can physically get done.  It’s like a boat with a leak and the water pours in faster than I can bail it out.  With the office so close, I fall into the trap on evenings or weekends of “nipping in to get a couple of things done,” then hours later…  It was a reality check when my daughter referred to my workplace as “Mommy home.”  Despite all of this, and perhaps surprisingly, I love my job, truly.  That is because the “product” I am selling is fantastic, but most of all because of the superb people I work with.  Everyone is likeable, big-hearted and exceptionally good at what they do.  There are no egos and everyone mucks in.  It is wonderful to be part of such a pleasant, supportive team – no, family - of professionals - it really is quite remarkable and rare.

The real surprise treat at near the end of the working day is to hear the office door open behind me and hear “Mummmmmmy!” when my husband and daughter stop by to say hello on their way home.  If I don’t get home in time for Ruby’s dinner, then I make sure to make it home for her bath time, bedtime stories and tucking into bed.  Andrew and I have dinner, do some tidying and more laundry, then I usually crack open the MacBook and get more work done.  We’re the thoroughly modern couple, as he sits opposite me working on his MacBook.  We stay up far too late, then I usually fall asleep reading a book and it starts all over again the next day.