Taunton's Brewhouse Theatre and Arts Centre has called in the receivers this week, leaving both artists and ticket buyers out of pocket.
Receivers Simon Girling and Graham Randall of BDO LLP have issued a statement to say, "The Brewhouse Theatre and Arts Centre was placed into Administration on 21 February 2013".
They added, "The theatre, café, workspaces and restaurant have been closed to the public, and no further shows or performances will take place until further notice. The Joint Administrators have been appointed to explore all options available to the venue."
Advance ticketholders are not able to get refunds on performances that will now not take place. Payments made by credit card could be eligible for refunds from the credit card companies, otherwise they will be treated as unsecured creditors.
Similarly, unpaid artists will also have to register themselves as creditors and are unlikely to be paid in full if at all, highlighting the knock-on effect that the failure of a venue has on other people and organisations in the arts industries.
Marcus Romer, artistic director of Pilot Theatre Company, one of these artist creditors, was tweeting as soon as the news was released and wrote a more detailed blog post yesterday. Pilot's Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner was performed at the Brewhouse in November 2012 at a reduced fee—below the cost to the company of running the production—after Somerset had announced a 100% cut to its arts budget.
Pilot has still not been paid. Romer said, "There are questions to be asked. At what point did the Brewhouse realise they could not pay their artists? October? November?
"In which case who did they prioritise payments to? Who did get paid after October? November? December?
"I have heard from companies and individual artists who have not been paid. Some of this is clearly their own money and is affecting them greatly.
"So, this is a very regrettable situation and it damages the whole sector and its reputation."
Information on how to contact the administrators for potential creditors is at www.thebrewhouse.net/main-house/1686.