NT’s £26.4m government funding supports Skills Centre launch
Hattie Fisk
Thursday, March 7, 2024
With the government investment of £26.4m, the National Theatre plans to improve and update its facilities alongside launching a new Skills Centre to support early- to mid-career workers in the theatre industry.
Belinda Lawley
Announced today, the UK government’s Spring budgets revealed that the National Theatre (NT) will receive flagship investment of £26.6m to support urgent infrastructure updates to its building.
To pair with this investment, the NT has launched a £125m fundraising campaign called Stories Start Here, aiming to raise the funds to ensure the National Theatre can continue to serve 17.5m people a year.
This recent funding installment will help the NT launch a new Skills Centre, which will provide engagement, skills development, career support and training opportunities nationwide across a breadth of specialisms for over 5,000 people each year. This will help those at an entry level and span up to mid-career.
The NT has also announced that the Skills Centre and new facilities will enable new opportunities for young people from the ages of 11 and up, expanding the number of placements available across the full range of theatre disciplines, and supporting new T Level qualifications in Production Arts.
This funding will also support the National Theatre’s learning activity that is delivered in every Local Authority in the UK. Currently, 1 in 4 secondary school children watch productions on the NT Collection for free.
The NT has assured the public that the upgraded facilities will support a strong pipeline of future creative talent, citing that to date 90% of apprentices trained at the NT have gone on to be employed in the sector. The new investment will mean the number of appendices trained at the NT each year will be doubled.
On the news, culture secretary Lucy Frazer said: ‘This investment of more than £26 million will allow the National Theatre to continue to deliver world-class theatre and cultural education at their iconic London South Bank home, and reach audiences across the whole country, helping to inspire the next generation of actors, writers and theatre production staff.’
