For more information please contact the Press and Development Officer Tel: 01298 72050 Email: press@buxtonoperahouse.org.uk
Opera House To Open Children’s Theatre
23 March 2006
Buxton Opera House has announced that it plans to add a second theatre to its already hugely popular 1903 Frank Matcham auditorium – a new studio theatre aimed at providing a performance and participatory venue for children and young people.
The new 106-seat Children’s Theatre will be housed on what is currently the stage of the Paxton Suite, immediately behind the Opera House, in the Pavilion Gardens complex – formerly the old Playhouse Theatre before the Opera House itself was re-opened in 1979. The Opera House has been in discussions with the Paxton Suite’s owners and operators, High Peak Borough Council, for the last couple of years, and jointly commissioned a feasibility study in 2003 from Creative Options Consultancy into the future of the Paxton Suite, with funding from the Derby & Derbyshire Economic Partnership.
Opera House Chief Executive, Andrew Aughton said: “We have been hoping for a long time to be able to use the Paxton Suite stage as a studio theatre, once our current small-scale space in The Paupers Pit at The Old Hall Hotel becomes part of The Crescent development. I am delighted that the theatre is now able to press on with its plans, and we will be launching a “Children’s Theatre Appeal” in the near future in order to fund the conversion. Once it is up and running – hopefully sometime in 2007 – a regular weekly programme of performances and participatory activities for children, families and teenagers will be the main focus of the work, although it would also be a venue for our current fringe drama programme, our Sunday night films, the Fringe & Festival each July, the Gilbert & Sullivan Festival each August, productions by students from the University of Derby, and – we hope – used by young people and community groups from Buxton and throughout the High Peak for performances and rehearsals. It will be an extremely busy new theatre!” The theatre’s Education & Community Officer, Louise Kerwin added: “A new small permanent studio space is just what our programme of work for young people needs. I can hardly wait!”
The 106-seat theatre will have eight rows of tiered seating from ground level to just over 9 feet above the stage, which will be a plain flat-floor area of just over 40 square metres. The seats will also retract to allow the whole room to become a workshop space. Audiences and scenery will enter the new theatre from the current Water Street entrance. A new sound lobby and an industrial sound-proofed partition across the current proscenium arch opening of the stage will insulate the new theatre from noise on St John’s Road or in the rest of the Pavilion Gardens complex.
Councillor Alan Wells, High Peak Borough Council Executive Officer for Regeneration, said: “The Borough Council has consulted far and wide on potential future uses for the Paxton Suite, and we are convinced that a second full-time theatre for Buxton and for the Opera House, especially with its focus on young people, is the best solution. It will also be a superb new community facility, which the town has lacked up till now. While we are still considering options for how to use the remainder of the Paxton Suite, I am delighted that we have finally settled on an attractive and exciting scheme for the use of the stage, and I believe it is fantastic news for the youngsters of the Borough.”
The conversion of the Paxton stage into a new Children’s Theatre is expected to cost in the region of £500,000 and to take between three and six months to complete, with work hopefully starting in 2007. Anybody wanting to know more about the Children’s Theatre Appeal, or wishing to make a donation, should contact the Opera House’s Chief Executive, Andrew Aughton or the Business Development Officer on 01298 72050.