The première of new play The Point has been cancelled in the wake of multi–arts venue The Arches going into administration.
The play, about friendship among sex workers has been put together by the cast from a script by John Stuart, whose début work Dirty Water enjoyed success at last year’s Edinburgh Fringe.
The team remains hopeful that the production can still go ahead and has opened a crowdfunding appeal to help with the costs of re-staging the play.
The Arches has been operating for 25 years and was a multi–arts venue offering a wide range of arts events as well as a nightclub. It was forced into administration after licensing limitations cut off an important revenue stream amidst police reports of drug taking and anti–social behaviour.
Stuart fears that the Arches closure will be a huge blow to independent, up-and-coming theatre in Scotland and has said, “you’ve got actors and techs working hard for months before, and money generously invested by sponsors and me personally that has to be written off. So it’s not great.
"But when you put on a new play, you already know you’re taking a gamble. It’s the people who depend on the venue to get by week to week that really suffer when something like this happens.”