We Need Your Help to get Nottingham a Grassroots Arts Venue!

We have been awarded funding from the Create Growth N2 Programme to run a series of roundtable events in Nottingham with the aim of getting a grassroots theatre and performing arts venue back in the city centre!

Nottingham is one of the largest cities in the UK without a fringe theatre space, defined as a small independent theatre or performance venue. Since Nonsuch Studios closed down, a hole has been left in the cultural landscape of the city that has not been filled by Nottingham Playhouse, Lakeside Arts, Squire Performing Arts Centre, or any other existing theatre space. While some performances can exist in other venues (pubs, clubs, music venues, cinemas, etc) this limits the ambition of local performers to spaces with reduced technical and equipment capabilities, as well as dissuades other fringe theatre makers around the country from touring to Nottingham. This negatively impacts the fringe theatre offering for local audiences, who are often demographically unique from the audiences at these other established arts venues previously mentioned, tending to be younger and more diverse in various ways, including global majority heritage, disability, neurodivergence, and LGBTQ+ identity.

But change starts with discussion and what I’m proposing is a series of roundtable discussions with representatives from the city’s different live performance subcultures, the council, and other industries with space to spare. These discussions would try and find a way forward with designating a currently unused space in the city for a dedicated grassroots fringe theatre and live performance venue. Over a series of 2 events, we can:

• Solidify the need for this space that we all hear people constantly discuss

• Prove that need to the gatekeepers of spaces in the city centre, many empty and unoccupied

• Introduce these people to meanwhile use policies that have successfully bolstered this sort of grassroots performing art culture in other cities around the country

Our first event is in the Gallery at Broadway Cinema on November 19th, from 18:00 until 20:00. Drop in any time and let us know what you need from a grassroots theatre and performing arts venue in Nottingham City Centre :)

This will only happen if we all play our part and show anyone that might be able to help us that we want this help. If you can't make the event itself, please do email us with ideas and your desires for a grassroots performing arts space at chronicinsanitytheatre@gmail.com before the event date so we can still have your input included on the day!

Let's get this venue!!!!!!!!!