Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation Donates to Help Local Theatres

The Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation just announced a donation to The Theatres Trust to help launch its Theatres Protection Fund. The Foundation will award a grant of £125,000, to be paid over the next five years, in order to help create a new Small Grants Scheme providing grants of under £5000 from the Theatres Protection Fund. The Foundation hopes its donation will encourage other organisations and individuals to give to the Scheme which will help protect theatres across the country that have significant value within their communities.

From today, The Theatres Trust will accept applications from theatres in need of funds to address urgent and longer term capital needs, and improve their physical condition, accessibility and operational viability.

The Theatres Protection Fund Small Grants Scheme is aimed at theatres run by charities and not-forprofit groups who can demonstrate the value improvements to their theatre buildings would make to their work within local communities. Grant recipients will demonstrate that they run a regular theatre programme of professional, community and/ or amateur work presenting more than 30 performances a year. Applicants must a have a bona fide UK charitable or not-for-profit legal structure and be able to provide certified or audited accounts for at least one year.

Madeleine Lloyd Webber, Trustee for the Foundation, said: “I am thrilled The Andrew Lloyd
Webber Foundation has been able to award a grant to The Theatres Trust to help them launch the
Theatres Protection Fund. We hope this will enable a number of small grants to be awarded, backed up by the expertise that The Theatres Trust can provide, to ensure worthy projects can proceed. Our theatres and their heritage must be cherished. I sincerely hope that others, especially those who have been lucky and successful in the theatre, will be encouraged to match the Foundation’s funding and allow the Theatres Protection Fund to widen its support in the future.”
Penelope Keith CBE DL, Actress and Theatres Trust Trustee said on behalf of the Trust, “This really is wonderful news for us. As well as providing advice and raising awareness of theatres in need, we will now be able to offer a lifeline to theatres that have nowhere else to go and urgently need a small injection of cash. Since Rob Dickins, our current Chairman, arrived in 2009 one of his ambitions has been to build our Theatres Protection Fund. Our challenge now is to match this generous gift of £125,000 from the ALW Foundation with other donors so that we can help protect even more theatres. If you are reading this and can help us in any way please do get in touch.”

Further details on applying to the Small Grants Scheme can be found at www.theatrestrust.org.uk

Photo Credit: Peter James Zielinski

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