Big drop in games organized by theaters in the past decade

The number of plays and musicals organized by the main subsidized theaters of the United Kingdom last year was down almost a third compared to 10 years earlier, suggests the search for the BBC.

In 2024, the 40 best -funded theater companies that produced their own productions – ranging from the National Theater to Colchester Mercury – opened 229 original productions, compared to 332 in 2014, a decrease of 31%.

Funding discounts and cost increases have taken a large part of the blame, the executive director of the National Theater, Kate Varah, saying recently saying that many in the industry are at the “break point”.

But some sites have said that the shows they make are on a larger scale than ten years ago, in order to run longer on tour or in the West End.

Last week, actress Lesley Manville warned that new talents had “less opportunity” to develop than when she started in the 1970s.

“It will be a decreasing discipline, because there is not always the number of stage works available to go,” she told BBC Radio 4 After winning an Olivier Award.

James Bring, director general and artistic director of Leeds Playhouse, said that the place had reduced its number of local shows from 12 to eight per year.

“This decision to contract was forced to theaters because it is so expensive, and more and more, to do work,” he told BBC News.

“We like to do work. It is therefore heartbreaking that the quantity of work you can do is a reduction, and this reduces pipeline opportunities for artists at the start of their careers.”

British theater has “a serious problem” with the reduction of opportunities, added Bring, which is about to leave Leeds to direct the Lyceum of Edinburgh.

Many artists and crews are starting their career in theaters before working in television and cinema, the artistic education consultant and theater blogger Carl Woodward said.

“Many Netflix stars and many of these people we see on dramas like Mr. Bates vs the post office and adolescence have cut themselves off in regional theaters.

“And if these opportunities are no longer there, then these ways do not exist. And it is a national scandal, I think.”

The financial pressures of the theater industry had an impact on the workforce, with “a low chronic salary, an insecurity of employment, a bad work / life balance,” he added.

Many places have said that they now co -produced more shows with other theaters or commercial operators to distribute costs and risks. It also means that these productions can be on a larger scale.

“Some individual productions made with the commercial sector are much larger than anything we have ever used,” said Rachael Thomas, managing director of Birmingham, Rachael Thomas.

“So for us, yes, there are fewer productions that come out, but we spend more because the productions we do are so much larger than ever.”

However, the representative has lost all its annual financing of the local council – once worth more than 1 million sterling pounds per year – and smaller shows have often been deleted, said Thomas.

“I guess the grant allows you to take the risk of the productions that will never recover what they have cost, and often it will be smaller productions.”

In 1995, The Rep's Studio Theater organized the first of East Is East, four years before becoming a successful British film. He couldn't afford to play a piece of this ladder in his studio today.

“I cannot see a world in which we could now launch a room that has a nine or 10 distribution size in our 133 -seat studio space now as a new room,” said Thomas.

“For our model, and I would say that for the vast majority of regional production theaters, it is almost impossible.”

The artistic director of Salisbury Playhouse, Gareth Machin, said that the public tastes had also changed, which means that it is more difficult to put a “serious drama”, especially outside London.

“When the money is tight, people want a good evening and they don't want to take a risk,” he said.

“They probably don't go out as much as they were, so when they go out, they don't want to try to take a chance on something, they are not sure that it will be entertaining and a fun experience.

“So there is less misery and risks.”

The director general of Nottingham Playhouse and the joint president of the British theater, Stephanie Sirr, said that she had not recognized the image of a drop in productions, stressing that “he fluctuated from year to year”.

“I think it's more difficult to produce these days,” she continued.

“The costs have increased exponentially. Things and energy costs really have an impact if you build landscapes all day, or if you run theater lanterns all night.”

However, doing more co-productions is a positive thing in many ways, and said “we have really been able to increase the extent of the work we produce,” she said, with the production of Nottingham by Dear Evan Hansen now during a large tour in the United Kingdom.

A handful of places organized more original shows in 2024 than in 2014. They include Leicester Curve, which emphasized the creation of musicals in collaboration with commercial producers, which can then go on the road.

Curve has doubled its box office receipts in the last decade.

“By sharing resources and risks, we are able to do more work and create more work,” said CEO Chris Stafford.

“We do more with less public investment,” he said, but said that the biggest challenge for many theaters would be to allow essential repairs and construction improvements in the years to come.

Annual financing of artistic councils in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and the Scottish equivalent has been largely stagnating for 10 years – while inflation has increased sharply – and many places have reduced their subsidies to the local council. Many are also still reclaiming from the pandemic.

Last year, an investigation By the group's freelancers, Make Theater Work represented “a workforce that is in Breaking Point”.

The interpreter and spokesperson for the group, Paul Carey Jones, said that the search for the BBC “would not surprise most of the theater freelancers in the United Kingdom, who have trouble with low rate of remuneration, career precariousness and vulnerability, a lack of certainty of employment and a crisis in retention of skills for many years.

“It shows the government's need for action in terms of financing for the arts, but also of the theater industry to support its independent workforce, on which it depends entirely.”

The search for this story had the original co -productions and the co -productions that opened in 2014 and 2024, including revivals, transfers and tours. They had to be professional theatrical productions in person, at least an hour and to have run for at least a week. If a co -production has been made jointly by more than one theater, it was considered a unique production.

The research covered the 40 places, festivals and touring companies that produced original theater, operated in 2014 and 2024 and obtained the largest annual subsidies in 2024/25 from the artistic councils of England, Wales and Northern Ireland, Creative Scotland and the Scottish government.