Chris Stafford Talks Curve Theatre's 10th Anniversary

My name is Chris Stafford and I'm Chief Executive of Curve Theatre

Chief Executive at Curve is essentially the person who works across departments

and I really see my role as making sure people who work around me

who are far better at doing what they do than I could ever be have all the right resources and conditions in order to be excellent

So this year is our 10th birthday at Curve and it's been a year of real celebration right across our building

So we've done very big public events. So we did an event called Curve Live where we had lots of people who've been part of the family for the last 10 years

performing a live concert free of charge that was chosen at ballot

But rather than just do a live concert in our 900 seat theatre, the joy of Curve is we've got this extraordinary architecture

So we were able to open all walls into our 300 seat studio space and have essentially a 1200 seater concert free of charge

So that was a brilliant way of marking our 10th birthday. We also have done masses of community projects working within our local community about what does Leicester mean to them

But also this year we celebrated that we sold almost a million tickets both for our work in Leicester and our national and international tour

When we reached our fifth birthday we announced we sold a million tickets in the first five years

And I think it's a real note of kind of the journey that Curve's gone on in the last ten years that we've marked it with a million tickets

Regional theatre is incredibly, incredibly important to what is the theatre make-up in this country

in the landscape of what theatre is in this country. Most of us, our very first experience of theatre is in our local theatres outside of London

Of course we need a capital city which is on the world map, which really is a champion of excellence in theatre

But excellence in theatre doesn't begin and end in London. It's all up and down the country

You look at what's happened with Whole Truck as through the City of Culture

You look at the work that's happening at the Everyman, the new repertory seasons that they're championing

The RSC championing new work as well as reinvention of Shakespeare's classics

Theatre up and down the land is doing excellent, excellent stuff. Often at a fraction of what you would pay in the West End

But I would strongly believe that of the quality that you would get in the West End

and that's work that's homegrown often but also work that we're bringing into our theatres. A

theatre like Curve we do lots of work under our Made at Curve banner and that work that we produce in our home theatre that sometimes only sits at Curve and in Leicester but often goes out nationally and internationally We sold I think about 750 tickets last year

for work that we created at Curve on the road across this country but also internationally

But alongside our produced work, what's really exciting about running a regional theatre

is you get to invite some incredible artists from outside of your city to come and make work or bring their work

So at the moment we've got Cameron McIntosh is opening Les Mis at Curve

Cameron chooses Curve to open his work because of our unique facilities

And I think the fact that we've got incredible audiences, and I'm very biased for our audiences, but we do have incredible audiences

So one of the joys of regional theatre is you get to surprise, you get to curate a broad programme

because our jobs as leaders of regional theatres is to make sure that we serve all of our audiences

I firmly believe every taxpayer has right and access to come and engage with great art and culture

And so we can present work, which are big-name blockbuster titles like Les Mis

new work like Belarus Free Theatre, but also we can be a champion of creating

and originating world-class theatre on our doorsteps. Funding cuts are always something that we live in fear of

We are now accustomed as theatre leaders to doing more with less

And absolutely our job is to advocate and lobby to ring fence and safeguard public funding in the arts

We can't be pitching public funding with the arts with essential services

We need it all for a civic society. And the more that's chipped away, the more that we're going to lose

and we may not know what we've lost until it's gone and it will take many, many years to replace that

And when I say what we've lost, essentially it's the work that requires significant investment

Running a theatre like Curve, all of our artist development work, all of our learning work, often work that happens behind closed doors

which is less visible than White Christmas or On Your Feet or Cat in the Hat or any of the shows that we're doing

But that's the work that is really about the future. That's the work that is about cultivating and nurturing artists, making sure that they have a..

But we want to find the next big musical theatre writer. We want to find the next big drama writer, next choreographer

And that resource is really important. So funding and investment in the arts goes to things like artist development

We look at what's happening now at the curriculum. As I said most people first engage with the arts through school and when creativity is being chipped away on the curriculum and the EBAC is denying that creative voice and plays and drama we gonna we gonna produce a society which unless you

got the the financial means many young people will not be going to theatre I come from a very very

working class background my parents never could afford to take me to theatre I only went because

my school got me on a free place to go so that whole idea that investment in the arts it for me

it's about the future and so for us as theatre leaders but also audiences and participants

we've got to champion and advocate for that and of course what we also have to do is i run a

business so i've got to find more ways to plug that gap what i can't do and what wouldn't be

right is no none of us running these theatres ever rests on our laurels but for me it's really

important we are finding ways because we're aware of the status quo in terms of Brexit who knows

fundamentally the impact that Brexit will have on our economy there will be an impact I firmly

believe but whatever that impact will have an impact on the arts but at this moment in time

I think I can probably speak for many people I simply don't know I'm really lucky that I'd say

I've had many highlights over the last five years. I think one of the biggest highlights, actually

and this is a very personal one, is my relationship with Nick Lai. I think I've always wanted to run a building

and I always wanted to find a running mate that I could connect with

because I see those teams, and when they work, they're extraordinary. Nick and Nick from the National, now the bridge

I look at Tom and Emma, at Bristol Old Vic. So those teams, I think, they can make magic

and also they can ride the tough times but also really kind of push ambition

And for me, a highlight was meeting Nikolai. So we've got an awful lot coming up

over the next six to 12 months. And as I often think, I can tell you

what we're doing in 2021, 22, but I always struggle in the immediate future

The highlights that we've got coming up in terms of Made It Curve work is we're really, really thrilled

Obviously, we're doing White Christmas and Cat in the Hat this year. The shows for young people and families are really important to us

and Nicolai and I decided when we very first started working together

three and a bit years ago that we wanted to create work, quality work for young people, and produce that in our studio

our 300-seater, alongside the musical in the 900-seater. So Cat in the Hat will also go on national tour after Curve

which we really thrilled about And we also doing co To Kill a Mockingbird So Regent Park production we co and it will open at Curve And we really really thrilled

It's such an extraordinary production. And it's one where we had it at Curve a few years ago

And when Jonathan Church Productions approached us about co-producing it this year

without hesitation we said yes. watching people of all ages engaging with that incredibly powerful drama

was quite extraordinary so we're thrilled to be doing that a very personal highlight of mine

the first musical we put down money for and the licence for

when I first became Chief Executive is The Colour Purple I think it's an extraordinary piece of musical theatre

there was a production in London a few years ago that transferred to Broadway

but I don't think there's ever been a quite big scale production

outside of London ever produced and so I'm really pleased that we're going to be co-producing that

with Birmingham Hippodrome and an incredibly fantastic director called Tanuki Craig is at the helm of that production

and I'm really, really excited to see what she's going to do with that so that's going to be a massive one for us

But alongside that, we're also going to, straight after that, I believe, we're doing the UK premiere of Gloria Estefan's On Your Feet

Nicola and I saw it on Broadway about three years ago and were blown away

It was blown away by it. Gloria's story is quite extraordinary. The music is obviously fantastic. The choreography is sublime

and we went to see it just to go and see the musical. It was our night out, it was a night off

and fortunately we were offered by Jamie Wilson Productions if we wanted to co-produce with them

and Gavin Kaelin on bringing the production over here before it goes for 12 weeks at the Coliseum in London

and we're delighted that we're doing that and Gloria's been in Leicester, she promoted it in Leicester

and what was really fantastic is seeing her in our theatre, in complete awe of our theatre

but also seeing her work with our Curve Young Company. In five words to describe Curve

Creative. Community. Ambitious. Bonkers

joyous