Youth theatre funding cut after 30 successful years

Youth theatre funding cut after 30 successful years

 

Community group’s budget scrapped in council cutbacks just months after their director wins an MBE.

 

• Central Youth Theatre will lose 100% of funding in March 2014.
• Director Jane Ward received an MBE in November 2013 and the group played a key part in the Cultural Olympiad.
• Group has attracted £250,000 to struggling city in four years.
• Beverly Knight, BBC Three sitcom stars rally to help.

Wolverhampton’s Central Youth Theatre may have to close in within months, as Council officers have threatened to cut all of the group’s funding.

Officers from Wolverhampton City Council are proposing a 100% cut from the end of March 2014, just as the successful youth theatre group celebrates its 30^th anniversary. Director Jane Ward was also presented with an MBE in the Queens Birthday honours last year for services to drama and to the community.

Central Youth Theatre is one of only 13 organisations in the area to face such drastic measures. Other voluntary organisations have been given 12 months to build a business case and to seek funding from other sources. 

Jane says:  “I only received the MBE in November, and so it comes as a very bitter irony that the Council has chosen us.”

In 2011 the group was also the only youth theatre in the UK to be awarded a Cultural Olympiad grant of £100,000 to stage an amazing site-specific international youth theatre festival in Wolverhampton. The Festival entitled Everybody Dance Now involved six European Youth Theatres performing in the city and the conversion of a former railway station, Low Level in Springfield, Wolverhampton, into a ballroom.

David Moorcroft OBE, Chair of West Midlands 2012, stated: “If one group had really encapsulated the spirit of 2012 and the inspire programme it was Central Youth Theatre”. David was so impressed with the work of the Youth Theatre that he has subsequently gone on to become a patron of the group.

Soul singer Beverley Knight, currently starring in the West End, said in a tweet: “Were it not for W'ton youth theatre I doubt I'd be in @TheBodyguardUK or have a music career.”

Ben Clark, co-creator and actor in BBC3’s Badults said: “Without @CYT_Wolves I wouldn't have had a career in comedy and a show on BBC3. #SaveCYT” Clarke’s co-star, Tom Parry, was also a long term member of Central Youth Theatre. The two are currently recording their second series, along with their collaborator Matthew Crosby.

Since the potential cuts were announced the Youth Theatre has spent the last three months campaigning for Wolverhampton City Council to give them more time. A gradual grant reduction over 12 months could allow the group to become self-sufficient.

Council officers scored the Youth Theatre as having no economic value in a cabinet report on voluntary sector savings, even though Central Youth Theatre has attracted £250,000 to the city in just four years. Former members have also provided evidence of the impact the Youth Theatre has had on their professional careers, with many former members becoming successful as performers, in behind-the-scenes roles in theatre, film and television and in fields such as teaching and journalism.

“Central Youth Theatre is a small organisation that totally reflects everything that is imbedded in David Cameron’s vision of the Big Society,” say director Jane Ward. “ We work tirelessly to encourage young people from across the three generations of our youth theatre to support each other and share skills.  At this very moment, to mark our 30^th anniversary, we have five former members writing new scripts for current members to perform on stage at Wolverhampton’s Grand Theatre in July 2014.   This is a real celebration of the talent that has passed through our organisation.  During the last year former members have also begun helping us to raise funds to become more self-sufficient, which shows the affection and respect they still have for us.”

NOTES:

• Central Youth Theatre was established in 1983 and has always been run by Director Jane Ward.
• Thousands of young people from across the West Midlands have been involved with Central Youth Theatre and credit the organisation teaching them skills, increasing confidence and allowing them to develop new social groups.
• In 2013 the group was selected to represent the UK at the World Festival of Amateur Theatre in Monaco.
• The group has taken hundreds of young people to 41 international festivals across East and Western Europe.  This is a unique feature of our work and no other youth theatre in the UK has the same track record of international opportunities. 

 

For further information, pictures and to arrange interviews with Director Jane Ward and current and former members please contact Jane Ward on 07941 922580 or twwajane@aol.com.