This morning the Byre Theatre, St Andrews, announced it was closing because of the danger of becoming insolvent. Here's the official statement.
As a reminder of what we are losing, I dug out this article I wrote for the Herald in 1997:
LAST week I took a peak into the Byre
Theatre auditorium for the last time. Never again will I see that narrow oblong
room, the audience occupying little more space than the stage, in a building
hidden away on a footpath off the main road, like some clandestine meeting
house for the artistically deprived.
Thanks to a £3,385,000 lottery award, the
biggest of its kind in Scotland, the St Andrews theatre is being demolished,
and a completely new building going up in its place. The bulldozers are
expected to arrive at the start of August. Next time a member of the public
gets inside the town's only professional theatre space, it will be the autumn
of 1999, when the old 174-seat auditorium will have been replaced by a
220-seater with back-stage facilities previously only dreamed of.
It's the most ambitious of the various
lottery-funded projects taking place around the country at the moment. Many
theatres are upgrading their dressing rooms, re-upholstering their seats, or
sprucing up their box offices, but to go as far as starting again from scratch
is something else.
It's certainly an unimaginable leap from
the theatre's first incarnation in a former cow-shed, rented for £10 a year in
1933. The actress Una McLean got her first job there in 1954, and remembers having
to climb out of the dressing room down a ladder to get onto the stage. If she
took her exit on the opposite side, she had to go out into the yard and back up
a steel staircase. "You had to exit prompt side in all kinds of
weathers," she recalls. "You'd be out in the pouring rain, and having
to go up the staircase to come back on the other side."
That building was vacated in 1970 to make
way for a new purpose-built theatre on the same site. Sadly, they lost the
notice saying "Please keep your feet off the stage," in the process.
Happily, leg room was no longer a problem. The new theatre served the company
well, but after 25 years the roof was leaking, the heating malfunctioning,
access was poor for disabled people, and there was little hope of it surviving
into the next millennium.
When artistic director Ken Alexander
returns at the end of his itinerant season in two years' time, he will find
vastly improved facilities. No longer will passers-by on Abbey Street be faced
by an unwelcoming concrete facade showing no signs of life. Instead they'll see
a long, airy foyer running along the north side of the building, leading to a
first-floor restaurant and second-floor box office.
The architects, Nicoll Russell Studios, who
also worked on Dundee Rep, have aimed to retain the intimacy that has
characterised the Byre throughout its history, increasing the audience capacity
only to 220. Backstage, there'll be major improvements, with the introduction
of a fly-tower, a full-size scenery dock twice as big as the stage, and
substantial wing space on both sides of the stage. The increased playing space
will allow the theatre to present dance for the first time.
"Actors and audience are all agreed
that the thing that works about the Byre is the intimacy between the stage and
the auditorium," says Ken Alexander. "You can get away with smaller
and more intricate detail in this space. The new theatre will have a similar
relationship, although it encircles slightly more."
Additionally, there will be a studio space
which will be used for rehearsals, workshops and meetings of the busy Byre
Writers' Group. Changing rooms, administration offices and workshops will be
positioned together, somewhere above where the cafe used to be. The house next
door to the theatre is being demolished, giving the architects a third more
ground space to play with.
At the moment, the company is able to skimp
by with four full-time staff, but there'll be no such economies with a big new
building to run. The plan is that some costs will be offset against increased
revenue from the bar and restaurant, but the experience of other theatres
suggests that benefits and expenditure are impossible to estimate accurately.
"Costs are likely to increase because we've got a more interesting space
to work with, with more possibilities," says Alexander. "The Scottish
Arts Council recognises that increased costs will be an issue, but it's making
no promises."
The director does not regard the project
simply in terms of bricks and mortar. He sees it as a chance to develop his
programme, reach new audiences, and make artistic connections previously denied
to him. He's treating this homeless period as a chance to spread the Byre's
name abroad, taking the forthcoming Worzel Gummidge to Kirkcaldy after St
Andrews, premiering Jan Nathanson's Californian Poppy on the Edinburgh Fringe,
and initiating a community touring policy that will continue even after the new
building is opened.
Once back in Abbey Street, he aims to cater
to a range of audiences - not only the holiday-makers who account for up to 70
per cent of his summer trade, and not only the typical subscription audience.
Like many a disciple of the late Joan Knight, Alexander is a populist to the
last, and he makes no apologies for giving people what they want.
"You can programme in an exciting
manner and be popular too," he says, already commissioning writers with a
view to increasing the national stock of popular plays. "Rather than just
doing a summer season, as we have done in recent years, we will be able to
extend the programme of our own work, and have a greater ability to attract
touring work. The potential at St Andrews is great because you've got three
distinct audiences - tourists, students and local residents. In terms of the
programme we'll be aiming to get as diverse an audience as possible. We'll have
more flexibility in the spaces we can use, and therefore the range of
activities we can programme. I hope we'll have the stability to programme
Whistle Down the Wind one week, and Trainspotting the next."
At the moment, the company is able to skimp
by with four full-time staff, but there'll be no such economies with a big new
building to run. The plan is that some costs will be offset against increased
revenue from the bar and restaurant, but the experience of other theatres
suggests that benefits and expenditure are impossible to estimate accurately.
"Costs are likely to increase because we've got a more interesting space
to work with, with more possibilities," says Alexander. "The Scottish
Arts Council recognises that increased costs will be an issue, but it's making
no promises."
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