Survival appeal success

Play to the Crowd's immediate future secured

Due to the extraordinary support of our local community raising over £225,000 for our Survival Appeal, and a vital £219,134 support package from the government’s Culture Recovery Fund, our immediate future is secure.

We are thrilled to announce that Theatre Royal Winchester, Hat Fair and Playmakers can continue on.

Huge thanks to everyone who has shown their support!

Deryck Newland, Chief Executive comments, "We are extremely grateful to everyone who has donated to our Survival Appeal and to the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and Arts Council England for approving our application to the Culture Recovery Fund.

Our Survival Appeal allowed us to survive beyond the end of September and the Culture Recovery Fund grant will help to mitigate some of the ongoing and increasing risks and uncertainties around Covid-19 across the next six months."

David Hill, Chair of trustees for Play to the Crowd, added, "I would like to pay tribute to our remarkable trustees, who have shown such great commitment and support through this challenging time. All of the trustees would also like to send a sincere thank you for the extraordinary generosity and passion shown by our community, which has made the success of the Survival Appeal possible."

Deryck Newland continues, "This has been, and continues to be, an extremely challenging time for the sector. As with many organisations we’ve had to take extreme measures to reduce our costs which heartbreakingly has meant restructuring our charity leading to staff redundancies, to build a more sustainable organisation for the future.  We are grateful to the government for recognising the value of the arts, however the Culture Recovery Fund won’t save every venue or arts organisation and our thoughts are with those whose future remains uncertain, together with the thousands of freelancers who are the lifeblood of our industry and many of whom remain without any financial support since March.

With this support package in place we are thrilled to announce that, providing government guidelines continue to allow, we will now be able to produce a special, fun filled and socially distanced Christmas show at Theatre Royal Winchester by the same creative team behind our pantomimes called Four Dames in Search of a Panto."