Theatres Trust director Jon Morgan has responded to today’s news of further grants from the Culture Recovery Fund:
Theatres Trust welcomes the additional £300m in Culture Recovery Fund grants, of which up to £250m is to be distributed by Arts Council England. The priority for theatre in 2021 will be getting to Stage 5 of the Theatre Reopening Roadmap which will allow theatres to reopen viably with fuller audiences. This will be dependent on a combination of vaccine and rapid testing rollout and the implementation of an agreed set of mitigation measures in theatres. The timescale for these elements is of course challenging and not yet clear, so the allocation of funds to support theatres beyond April 2021, along with the welcome extension of the furlough scheme, will provide much needed additional security for theatres as we work towards welcoming back fuller audiences next year.