The Future of Tobacco Factory Theatres – Exciting Plans Are Afoot!
You will have heard by now that in January we sadly had to close our Brewery Theatre for good, due to changes in the spaces shared with surrounding businesses. The news was greeted with widespread shock, concern and questions from audiences and peers.
In the months since, BEYOND – our offsite season across Bristol has been the perfect accompaniment to our Factory Theatre programme. And in the background, we’ve been busy planning what’s next at base camp.
Having a second performance space is a crucial part of who we are, the work that we can do and the impact we can have on our artistic and public communities. A second, smaller space allows us to present outstanding young talent from emerging artists and companies, as well as cutting edge new writing, wonderfully engaging family shows and less performed work, both from touring companies or as in-house productions.
So we’re thrilled to be in the early stages of a project to relocate our second theatre space into the main Tobacco Factory building, alongside the existing Factory Theatre. Bringing our two spaces together under one roof will make Tobacco Factory Theatres a wonderful place for actors and companies to work alongside one another and for audiences to enjoy the experience of a bustling, welcoming venue which is bursting with creativity and personality.
As you can see in the plans on this page, the new theatre project involves transforming the area currently taken by the existing dance studio to create a fantastic new 86-seat theatre space, including dressing rooms, state of the art technical facilities, soundproofing and an extended front of house area.The new studio theatre space will be the perfect complement to the Factory Theatre and will be a great improvement on the previous Brewery Theatre space – with comfortable seating, better facilities,
the Box Office and bar close to hand and no more queuing in the rain! And fear not, the community classes that took place in the Factory Studio will move just down the road to our Brewery Studio.
At the moment our team is busy planning, with an intended start date for building in 2017. We’ll keep you updated as things progress and will let you how you can support the project in the coming months.
We very much hope you’re looking forward to going on this new journey with us – stay tuned!
Are you an artist or company looking for a technically facilitated rehearsal space?
Our Brewery Theatre space is currently being used as just that. See our Brewery Theatre page in Hire Our Spaces for more information.
Posted on 31 March 2016
