Barnet borough council is to build a new £11m arts centre in North Finchley. Called the Tally Ho Corner Arts Centre, it will feature a 400-seater main house and a 120-seater studio. Once planning permission has been granted, building is expected to start in October and to be completed in 2002, with the oening currently scheduled for March of that year.
There was only one theatre winner in the first Creative Scotland Awards, announced last week. Director Annie Wood is to get £25,000 to work with Walt Disney Theatrical Productions to create large-scale children's theatre in Scotland. Fourteen awards were made altogether.
Oxford Playhouse to be core-funded
Southern Arts has agreed to provide core-funding for the Oxford Playhouse. SA is offering most core-funded companies fixed funding for two years, and then it will be for three years. The Playhouse will receive £49,600.
Recurrent funding status for Yvonne Arnaud
South Eastern Arts have granted recurrent funding status to Guildford's Yvonne Arnaud Theatre. It will receive £100,000 a year from SEA.
Bromley Churchill contract changes hands
The Ambassador Theatre Group has been awarded the contract to run the Churchill Theatre, Bromley for a ten year period. Last year the borough council terminated the five-year contract held by Theatre of Comedy on the grounds that they had not kept to te policy of "best value".
ATG now has control of six regional houses and two in London, and is regarded as the most likely group to take over Crescent Theatres, London's second largest theatre chain.
Leatherhead's Thorndike Theatre, closed since 1997, may have reached the end of the road. According to a feasibility study commissioned by Mole Valley District Council and the Thorndike Revival Group, the theatre is too costly to run and there is no need for such a large venue in the town.