Watermill bosses: Well-known musicals are vital for us after losing ACE funding

Watermill Theatre bosses have described how staging a well-known musical each summer for extended runs has been a successful way of weathering the 100% cut to its Arts Council England funding in 2022.

Artistic director Paul Hart told The Stage that this year’s success of Jesus Christ Superstar, which has been the Watermill’s longest-running and best-selling musical, endorsed a rethink of the theatre’s business model post-cut, which brought large-scale titles to the "centre".

The pair were speaking at the UK Theatre Awards, where the theatre’s reimagining of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s Jesus Christ Superstar was crowned best musical production.
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"Taking such a massive, epic piece and doing it in a 200-seater converted mill was such a mad idea. And yet, people really got behind it," he said.

Asked whether the accolade felt like a vote of confidence in staging large-scale, well-known musicals, Hart replied: "Absolutely.

"We have really thought about our business model since we lost our funding from the Arts Council, and the musical in the summer is now the centrepiece of our programme.

"So, we now run it for longer, and we really think about those titles and about how what we can bring to those titles can help audiences experience them afresh.

"It feels like a real endorsement for that decision that we took to reshape the business model in the way that we did and to continue to be really ambitious with our work. It feels like that was the right decision."

Executive director Claire Murray said it was "hard to say" whether other venues would follow suit.

"I think the thing losing your funding makes you focus on is what makes you special.

"The musical and actor musicianship has always been central to the work that we create, and it’s something that our audiences have responded well to, and so we felt that that is where we should really focus our attention across the year.

"But every organisation is different and there will be other challenges – and also other opportunities – as we do see the funding becoming more and more difficult as we go forward," she said.

Since losing all its annual funding from Arts Council England in 2022, the Watermill has also revived a musical version of The Lord of the Rings, which toured internationally, and Barnum, which has announced a UK tour.