Newcastle's Alphabetti Theatre is looking for £2,500 in crowd funding to enable it to develop a new intimate theatre in the basement of an office block in New Bridge Street in the City Centre.
Alphabetti has received a grant for the arts from Arts Council England to aid the transformation and to pay the artists for productions in the space. The grant comes with the condition that the company can raise £2,500, which led them to turn to a crowd-funding campaign where they have asked members of the public to donate their money to (as one local magazine NARC put it) "secure the future of one of the city’s most innovative theatres."
With 10 days left before the crowdfunding deadline, Alphabetti is 66% off the £2,500 target and with it being an all-or-nothing campaign is desperate to bolster the funds.
Formed in 2012, for the past 18 months Alphabetti was based in a small room above a pub, where it created over 3,000 opportunities for artists to perform. Since moving out in September 2014, the company has been in search of a new home.
In December 2014, it agreed a trial six-month tenancy for a basement in New Bridge Street, with the aim of extending it to a yearly rolling tenancy until the office block is due to be knocked down (currently estimated to be in 2018).
Currently, the theatre is in the process of becoming licensed for alcohol which means all the profits from the bar will fund the art being made.
Full details—including how to donate and what the company is offering in return—can be found on the Ideastap crowd funding web site.