Theatre's act of defiance

The audience at the Priestley Centre was as full as I'd seen it for some time.

In the stalls, a cluster of people drank in every line the actors spoke. The atmosphere was charged; it was a fun evening.

Unfortunately, it wasn't a show but a rehearsal; the cast of Abigail's Party were merely going through the motions for the benefit of the stage crew. Public performances at the Priestley just lately have been altogether less joyous occasions.

Since the former Bradford Playhouse and Film Theatre rose like the proverbial Phoenix last November from the ashes of an electrical fire, audiences have fallen to coffee-morning numbers.

Partly it's because of confusion. Few people, it seems, know that the Priestley Centre and the Bradford Playhouse are one and the same; those who know seem ambivalent, to say the least.

As a result, the Priestley's chairman Simon Saunders went so far as to warn last week that if audience numbers did not improve, it might only be a year before the theatre went to the wall.

But the crisis in which the Priestley Centre finds itself enveloped is largely of its own making.

An administrative blunder of monumental proportions resulted in the theatre forgetting to submit its annual grant application to Bradford Council. It is funding such as this which accounts for nearly all the building's income.

The Council is now doing what it can to find money to keep the Priestley afloat - but clearly, these are not happy times at the little theatre on Chapel Street.

It's not the first time they've had their backs to the wall, mind you. In 1991, they sounded the panic alarm when the British Film Institute decided to transfer funding of long standing to what is now Pictureville Cinema. And back in the 1930s, a fire threatened to shut the place for ever.

The current problem, however, has forced the Priestley Centre to reassess fundamentally its place within the life of the city.

"We have become aware," says Mr Saunders, "that in the current economic climate, organisations like this cannot exist unless they are more market-led. We can't continue on the audience levels we used to have and in the way we used to operate. So we're having to restructure our organisation to make better use of our resources."

Simon Saunders is a teacher who took over the chairmanship of the Priestley at the beginning of the year.

He admits that he knew nothing about drama until he became involved with the old Playhouse some seven years ago. Now, he has six plays as director under his belt, and is directing and appearing in Abigail's Party.

He acknowledges that the theatre's failure to apply for a Council grant was a big setback, and a self-inflicted one at that.

"In the upheaval of the fire and the rebuilding, we lost the grant application," he says. "The administrative system wasn't working as it should have been, and it was simply mislaid.

"By the time we found it, we were six weeks past the deadline. The application went in straight away but it was too late.

"That money has gone now; it's been allocated elsewhere. We've missed it."

Discussions with the Council on alternative funding are continuing. "We're optimistic that in the next couple of weeks we're going to see some progress," says Mr Saunders. "We don't expect as much as we used to get, but it could be a not inconsiderable sum nonetheless."

Last year, the Council granted the theatre £27,500. Even that was peanuts compared with the £80,000 in film subsidies the Playhouse enjoyed before its 1996 fire.

"Before the fire we were just about covering our costs," says Mr Saunders. "Since then, because audiences and membership have declined we're no longer doing that and we're therefore losing money."

The chairman says he wants to foster a sea-change in attitudes among the Priestley's membership. The theatre is run entirely by volunteers; only two full-time members of staff are on the books. Theatrical productions are entirely and necessarily amateur, although not generally in terms of their production values.

"Before the fire this was very much a members' club and most of our plays were staged with the members in mind," says Mr Saunders. "That's why the seasons were weighted towards the classics and lesser known pieces that actors and directors wanted to work on.

"Now we're marketing the place very definitely as an arts centre, and we're trying to operate on a semi-professional basis. We're much more audience driven than we were in the past."

The Priestley is still predominantly drama oriented, however. Bradford's Alhambra Theatre, in contrast, points to its across-the-board spectrum of musicals, opera, dance and pantomime - sometimes all within a single month - as a prime reason for its success. The West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds offers a similarly diverse programme. The Alhambra management, not wanting to appear ungracious, declines to speculate on the reasons for the Priestley's poor showing, but its former publicist points to the need for a balanced season with universal appeal.

John Martin, now a freelance theatrical public relations specialist, who has worked with the leading northern producers John Godber and Barrie Rutter, says the Priestley must look further than Bradford for its audiences.

"People are mobile these days," he says. "Audiences will travel from as far as Skipton to see a good show in Bradford. And coach operators are an important source of income. They can fill 30 or 40 seats at a stroke."

Theatres can no longer expect crowds automatically to gravitate to them, Mr Martin warns. "They've got to go out and find audiences, and they've got to put on shows at times convenient to those audiences - sometimes at lunchtimes, sometimes in the afternoon.

"They could also do more to exploit their historic association with JB Priestley. Foreign tourists would be drawn to themed Priestley weekends, for instance."

Marketing costs money, however, and the Priestley works to a vastly different economic model to that of the commercial theatres with which it competes for audiences. Many professional shows are staged at costs of five or even six figures; the Priestley's production of Twelfth Night last month came in at just £250.

Back at Chapel Street, preparations for Abigail's Party are going well. "We're almost ready to go," says Mr Saunders. "We think this is the sort of piece that will appeal to a very wide audience."

He'll know soon enough whether he's right. Abigail's Party opens to the paying public tonight and runs until February 28, by which time the Priestley should know the results of its overtures to the Council.

As the night's rehearsal comes to a close, Simon Saunders cues the final curtain and the crew return to their beers - hoping, no doubt, never to hear him call the same instruction on the theatre itself.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.