Regional Producing Theatres In England. Leeds Playhouse: A Case Study

Back in 2019, I decided to write a book about the Leeds Playhouse. “Why?”, my friends asked me; “Because no one else has done so”, was often my reply. The Playhouse was about to celebrate its 50^th Anniversary. As my nearest regional repertory theatre, and one of the biggest in England, I felt it important to record its history. In beginning my research, I was very fortunate to find that all the theatre’s archives had been transferred to Leeds University Library.

As my research progressed (delayed, of course, by Covid 19) I found myself asking questions about regional producing theatres more generally: how should they differ from local receiving theatres; who should they exist to serve; how do you measure their success? I was fortunate in being able to ask these questions to both Artistic Directors and others who had worked to make the Leeds Playhouse what some saw as the National Theatre of the North.

Finally published in September 2024, the book evolved less as an historical record, more a case study of a regional producing theatre. The Playhouse has had the same opportunities and also faced the same challenges as other such theatres up and down the country. In doing so, they have had to contend with far less funding than their national equivalents. For example, when the Leeds Playhouse moved to its present building in 1990 (and became the West Yorkshire Playhouse), in that year the theatre staged the same number of productions as the National Theatre in London, and more of these were world premieres. The biggest difference, however, was in Arts Council England funding. In 1990-1991 the National Theatre received a grant of £9,140,000; the Leeds Playhouse received just £600,000.

Productions

Whatever else goes on at regional producing theatres, what happens on the stage(s) matters the most. And the roots, of course, of many such theatres was ‘true repertory’ – several productions being staged in the same week by a company of actors. Audiences welcomed the opportunity to see the same actors in a range of parts. In turn, many actors acknowledge how their careers benefited from such work. Ian McKellen, for example, talks proudly of the first four years of his professional career at theatres in Coventry, Ipswich and Nottingham. Unfortunately, the Playhouse, like most other theatres, had to abandon true repertory after just four years – for financial, not artistic reasons.

Particularly in the years that Jude Kelly was Artistic Director (1990 – 2002) Playhouse audiences were treated to many world premieres, including plays by Trevor Griffiths, Wole Soyinka, Kay Mellor, Irvine Welsh, and John Godber. More often, however, productions are regional premieres, often following London runs. Nevertheless, for most audiences they represent the first opportunity to see these plays, travelling costs and ticket prices making London visits impossible. And just like the National Theatre, regional theatres feel a responsibility to produce classic plays, from Racine to Rattigan. Shakespeare plays are also seen as essential, and not just because of school party income. ‘Big names’ help here; as early as 1974 the Playhouse attracted Paul Scofield to The Tempest, a production which transferred to London and achieved the record of the longest continuous run of a Shakespeare play in the West End. Since then, the Playhouse has seen actors including Ian McKellen, Warren Mitchell, Tim Pigott-Smith and Lenny Henry in leading Shakespeare roles. In 2002, Christopher Eccleston and Maxine Peake both made their Shakespeare stage debuts in Hamlet.

As well as providing golden opportunities for actors at the start of their careers, directors have also benefited in a similar way. For those who go on to become Artistic Directors elsewhere, regional producing theatres also give experience of theatre management. John Harrison, who was Artistic Director at the Leeds Playhouse between 1972 and 1990, was proud to have given a ‘bunk up’ to younger directors. His list includes Michael Attenborough and Nick Hytner. In later years, the theatre kickstarted the careers of Matthew Warchus, Vicky Featherstone and Nikolai Foster.

Local productions

Arguably, a successful regional theatre is also one that gives opportunities to local writers, producing work which often concerns local themes. If this is too much of a risk for a theatre’s main stage, such plays can be mounted in smaller studio spaces. In this respect, however, the Playhouse is different. The move to the West Yorkshire Playhouse in 1990 created two auditoria, one seating 750 people, the other an adaptable space allowing for up to 350 people. New work has been seen in both auditoria, and since 2019 in a third, smaller space.

Local writers and local themes are important for regional theatres in meeting the challenge of attracting audiences which reflect the ethnic groups in the communities served. Local themes can also attract audiences new to theatre. For example, in 2016 the Playhouse staged a version of David Peace’s novel, The Damned United, about Brian Clough’s short period as manager of Leeds United. Unsurprisingly, audiences were largely made up of football fans!

Community Work

Through community plays, regional theatres can attract local people not just into the audiences but onto the stage as well. The Playhouse has staged productions ranging from one about the history of Quarry Hill, where the theatre is located, to Carnival Messiah. The latter involved a fifty-strong community chorus, three sperate twenty-strong children’s choruses, twenty gospel singers, and twenty members of a steel band.

In addition to their programme of productions, successful regional theatres are ones where much more goes on as well. Work with children and young people is given a high priority in this respect. Youth Theatre groups are currently popular, including at the Playhouse where members are quite often involved in main stage productions. Prior to this work, the Playhouse operated one of the country’s leading Theatre In Education companies.

At the first Leeds Playhouse, there was a feeling that ‘something’s always going on’, and not just bar and restaurant provision. There were art exhibitions, concerts, and film showings (often starting at 11:15 p.m. after the evening performance of a play!). Since the opening of the West Yorkshire Playhouse in 1990, the theatre has supported ‘Heydays’, a weekly day of arts activities for older people, attracting five hundred members in its first year. More recently, the Playhouse has pioneered work for people living with dementia. It now has a Beautiful Octopus Club for people with learning disabilities. In 2014 the Playhouse became the first Theatre of Sanctuary, a national award in recognition of its work with refugees.

Ian McKellen in the West Yorkshire (now Leeds) Playhouse production of The Tempest, staged in 1999. (c) Tim Smith.

Cutting costs

Throughout the years of the first Leeds Playhouse (1970 -1990) almost all of the plays and musicals staged were in-house productions. There was an astonishing number of these: the end of 1979 saw the theatre’s one-hundredth production. Nevertheless, even by then it became necessary to start reducing their frequency, to reduce the cost of mounting these, and to look for plays with smaller casts. And soon after the move to the West Yorkshire Playhouse, the theatre began to depend on co-productions. These are those for which one theatre leads in terms of direction, scenery, costumes and all other production matters, but these costs are shared between one of more other theatres. The Playhouse regularly co-produces, for example, with the Birmingham Repertory Theatre. The Playhouse also became involved in co-productions with theatre companies such as Northern Broadsides and Kneehigh Theatre.

The Playhouse also began mounting co-productions with commercial theatre organisations; these were often ones for which a London transfer was planned. The beauty of these is that the theatre gains a steady income when transfers happen as planned, or when a production goes on to tour nationally. The best example here is The Thirty-Nine Steps, which ran for nine years in London’s West End; there followed a two-year run on Broadway; since then there have been UK tours and productions across the world.

That there is a Leeds Playhouse owes much to a small group of people who campaigned, in the 1960s, for a regional producing theatre in the city. These people were clear about who the theatre should be for.  They wanted a ‘people’s theatre’. They wanted to reach people from disadvantaged communities, to attract working class families. Choices of productions would be crucial in this respect. But from the start, Artistic Directors have been torn between on the one hand taking risks in deciding what plays to stage, and on the other hand mounting productions which are more likely to guarantee good audiences and good income.

Regional theatres in England are also heavily dependent on grant-funding: in Leeds the City Council (and before its demise, West Yorkshire County Council) and the Arts Council. Such funding has almost always only been decided from year to year, making longer-term planning almost impossible, and causing a precarious existence when grants start to become reduced. On more than one occasion, only emergency grant-funding and other one-off income has prevented insolvency. In this respect the Playhouse is no different to most other producing theatres.

Over the years, theatres have introduced various subscription schemes to attract regular attendances and loyal audiences. In Leeds, even when this has been successfully achieved, it is questionable as to whether these audiences are the ones those early campaigners wanted to attract. Indeed, a 2010 business plan argued for attracting regular attendances from the more affluent areas of the city on the basis that influential people live there, who generate good income.

Covid 19 lead to theatres remaining closed for long periods of time, and once again only government emergency and recovery funding saved theatres from going under. Since then, theatres have looked for new ways to survive. Some have continued to stream live performances. Others, including the Playhouse, have concentrated on musical revivals rather than new writing. Once again, however, it is necessary to ask the question – what is the role of regional producing theatres?  Concentrating on musical revivals simply mirrors an increasing priority of commercial theatres (and the West End of London continues to be dominated by these). Equally, in producing plays, regional theatres now have to contend with the increasing popularity of National Theatre Live: big budget productions and star casts. People can easily see these at their local cinema, and ticket prices are considerably cheaper too!

Leeds Playhouse, A Tale of Two Theatres by Dave Stannard is published by Naked Eye Publishing.