Theatre and Performance Studies News

Value of regional and local theatre

Adam Penford’s closing sentiment in his column on regional theatre, struck me as a very balanced and sensible view: “We’re all striving for the same thing: ensuring regional theatres are relevant, vital and flourishing in order to endure these testing times.”

Regardless of the debates between London and local theatres, the competition between rival venues and whether or not regional theatres are a training ground for the West End, the point Penford makes is a salient one. We should be valuing and promoting the very best for our regional theatres if we wish them to survive.

As a local Midlands girl, I have fond memories of performing at the Grand Theatre, Wolverhampton as a child. My sister, Aimée Fisher, has since gone on to work professionally in the West End in Les Misérables and Wicked. Though we share the same passion for theatre, we have chosen very different routes. We are both grateful for the role regional theatre has played in our lives and the way it has shaped our potential career paths.

However, I am hoping to contribute to the theatre industry in a very different way from my sister. As a third-year student at the University of Warwick, I am researching the interplay between the community and regional theatres, using the Wolverhampton Grand as a case study. I am conducting two surveys for my dissertation and would be delighted if readers of The Stage could respond to them:
• What does your local/regional theatre mean to you?
• How valuable is regional theatre to theatre industry professionals?

Both surveys close on April 26.

The wider the participation and engagement, the greater the validity of my research. I am hoping my research paper will be both exciting and useful to the Wolverhampton Grand as it celebrates its 125th anniversary this year.

Chloë Fisher
University of Warwick

We are delighted to announce that Varvara Sklez has won the Chancellor's International Scholarship. Varvara is currently a Research Fellow at the RANEPA in Moscow, and she will be joining the School in September this year. The title of her PhD dissertation is: The Aesthetics of Effort: Performing the Difficult Past in Contemporary Russian Theatre. Varvara will be supervised by Dr. Milija Gluhovic (Theatre), Prof. Christoph Mick (History), and Prof. Michael Saward (Politics).

Congratulations to alumni Ese Overo-Tarimo for starting a new position as Trainee Solicitor at Mayer Brown