Coronavirus: University drama societies campaign to save local theatres

Students from 19 university drama societies will take part in a new fundraising campaign to help save theatres across the UK.

The five-week campaign, called Students Saving Our Theatres, has been organised by three members of the University of Warwick’s drama society: Joshua Baumring-Gledhill, Lucy Chamberlain and Sophie Ling.

Universities in London, Birmingham, Bristol, Coventry, Durham, East Anglia, Edinburgh, Lancaster, Leeds, Liverpool, Oxford, Sheffield, St Andrews, Surrey, Swansea and York are also taking part.

Students are encouraging donations to an online Crowdfunding page and will participate in a different fun challenge each week.

Video highlights from the challenges, which include doing something to help the local community and making a new outfit from scratch, will be posted on the campaign’s Facebook page.

Each drama society participating in the challenge has chosen a theatre or charity to support, with the money to be split evenly between all the causes.

The venues they have chosen to support include Leeds Playhouse, Midlands Arts Centre and Crescent Theatre in Birmingham, Hope Street Theatre in Liverpool, Maddermarket Theatre in Norwich, Edinburgh’s Traverse Theatre, Dylan Thomas Theatre in Swansea, Coventry’s Shop Front Theatre, Warwick Arts Centre and Sheffield Theatres Trust.

York’s Joseph Rowntree Theatre, G Live in Guildford, the Dukes in Lancaster and theatre charity Acting for Others are also among the chosen causes.

Other university drama societies are invited to join the campaign, which will go live on June 15.

Across the five weeks, the organisers are also encouraging students to send videos of themselves performing, which will be edited together into an online scratch night broadcast on YouTube.

Second-year history student Baumring-Gledhill said: “Theatre at Warwick has shaped our lives at university and is extremely important to us.

"We were really saddened at the way theatres were suffering during the Covid-19 pandemic and wanted to be active in supporting the arts industry. We contacted other university drama societies and were overwhelmed by the positive response.

"We are humbled by the support we have received from other students and hope to raise as much money as we can to support an industry which we don’t want to see disappear."