Funding plea to help youngsters with dream of West End
Talented youngsters are missing out on going to drama school because of a lack of funding opportunities, according to a West End husband and wife team.
Chris and Lucy Key, who have been involved in shows such as West Side Story and Les Miserables, believe drama schools have become too expensive for many and have called for more funding to be made available.
Theatre director Chris said: “There’s no support for the arts at all from the Government and that has a knock-on effect with children in schools and them working their way through to drama school.
“There isn’t the money to get them to drama school and a lot of the drama schools are becoming more expensive, which means it is becoming a privilege to go rather than being based completely on talent.
“There are some bursaries here and there, but not enough to get all the people you would like into drama school.
“The arts have an incredible power to change lives, which we’ve seen first-hand. More needs to be done to make these opportunities accessible.”
The couple spoke to podcast The Graveyard Shift as part of a theatre special, which featured a chat with Olivia Hewings and Beki Poole from Theatre Severn in Shrewsbury.
They touched on many subjects during the podcast including their popular annual pantomime, demanding performers, and the major challenges facing the theatre industry in recent years such as COVID-19.
Olivia, who is the theatre’s operations manager, said: “Our programme is so good and varied, we’ve actually got ticket sales back to where they were pre-pandemic.”
The Graveyard Shift podcast is out now.
