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Interviews
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Simon Stallworthy - Taking on the Gala Peter Lathan talks to the man who has just taken over as General Manager of the Gala Theatre, Durham. Durham's Gala Theatre has had a sort but troubled history. With debts of almost £700,000 just onths after it opened and a series of management teams, only one of which - the last: a team from Darlington's Civic Theatre - managed to bring the struggling venue towards success, it is a bit of a hot potato, which has now fallen into the hands of Simon Stallworthy, formerly of the Bolton Octagon and Hull Truck. There will inevitably be changes in programming and other things, he says, as he fulfils his vision for the theatre. "I intend to take an holistic approach," he said. "I want to work in a more integrated way, using all the spaces, including Millennium Place (the "piazza" in front of the theatre)." He sees future programming in "patterns" of events. "Say, for example, we have a production of John Buchan's 39 Steps," he says. "At the same time we could run a series of John Buchan films in one of the two cinema spaces and run a workshop for writers on adapting films to the stage. We might even have specially themed menus in the restaurant! "It's not the sort of thing we would do every week. Perhaps only once a month or even less, but we would be looking to do things that no one else in the region is doing." He feels that there has to be a pattern to events in the theatre. People should know that if they come on, say, a Friday there's going to be comedy club, a folk club on another night, jazz on another, and so on. But he insists that what happens in the theatre needs to have a local resonance. "We need to find ways of embedding the Gala in the City and County of Durham." He likes, for example, the idea of having a writers' group based at the theatre and enthuses about the theatre's stage school and its involvment with other amateur groups, all part of involving the theatre in the local community. He instanced the work he did at Bolton on the project 100 Years in Worktown. A local community play, it emerged from what was essentially an oral history project, starting with people coming in to talk about their work. His most recent work, on digital storytelling with the BBC, has a simliar approach, and he hopes to use both experiences in his new job. "I'm interested in how to tell stories and celebrate our lives." Recently he has been working on Coronation Street and finds that something of an inspiration. We might, he thinks, argue about its artistic value, but it does tap into something in people's lives. It tells stories to which people relate and theatre should do the same. I wondered if he saw the Gala doing its own productions at some future date. It is too early to start thinking in those terms, he says, because his first job is to make the Gala work and be a successful receiving house, but he did not rule out, for example, it producing its own Christmas show or co-producing with other theatres of a smilar size. He instanced the success of the Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds with its co-productions. "Like everything else, it's a case of short-term goals, working out how the venue fits in Durham. We're going to be working closely with the University and the city council on the city's cultural strategy." We were sitting in the circle bar. Looking through the big widows (and a long way down!) we could see work starting on the redevelopment of the Walkergate area and opposite us were artists' impressions of the finished work which will make the theatre part of a thriving area of hotels and dwellings, with bar-restaurants, a car park for 500 vehicles and a scenic lift bringing people up from the level of the riverside to Millennium Place. "This is a very exciting place to be at this time," he said.
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