Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation Backs Paines Plough's First Portable Theater-in-the-Round

According to The Independent, Andrew Lloyd Webber's foundation has donated £150,000 to a traveling theater, the "Roundabout auditorium", designed by theatre company Paines Plough. It is the first portable theatre-in-the-round and aims to put grassroots theater back on the map.

Joint Artistic Director of Paines Plough George Perrin said: "That idea was of the circus coming to town and being in a space that feels owned by the community. We wanted to do it on a small scale so it's intimate and all the focus is on the writing and acting, not on big production."

"It's a way of tipping our hat to the regional theaters and saying it's extremely important as a foundation to theatre in this country," added board of trustees member Madeleine Lloyd Webber about the foundation's donation.

Read the original report here.

Paines Plough has plans to tour the 111-seat auditorium this year. The venue can be pieced together and taken down by just two people over several hours. Last year, the prototype made appearances in Sheffield Theatres and Shoreditch Town Hall.

Paines Plough is an award-winning, nationally and internationally renowned touring theatre company, specialising exclusively in commissioning and producing new plays and helping playwrights develop their craft. The company was founded in 1974 over a pint of Paines bitter in the Plough pub. Since then it has produced more than 100 new productions by world renowned playwrights like Stephen Jeffreys, Abi Morgan, Sarah Kane, Mark Ravenhill, Dennis Kelly and Mike Bartlett. Paines Plough has toured those plays to hundreds of places from Manchester to Moscow to Maidenhead.

The Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation's principle objectives are to promote the arts, culture and heritage for the public benefit. This Foundation was founded by Andrew Lloyd Webber in 1992.

Photo Credit: Walter McBride / WM Photos

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