The Theatre Community Fund will provide essential grants to thousands of theatre artists and professionals throughout the UK who have been displaced as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Many of the UK’s most successful artists and entertainment professionals have joined together to create the Theatre Community Fund in support of theatrical artists and professionals whose livelihoods and creative futures are threatened in the wake of Covid-19. With thousands of theatrical freelancers currently sidelined, and the prospect of re-opening uncertain for the foreseeable future, the Theatre Community Fund aims to help ease economic strain both immediately and in the long-term.
The Theatre Community Fund reflects its donors’ recognition that they have benefitted a great deal personally from the health of the UK theatre, and is a statement of their belief that UK theatre – nationally for all audiences and voices and down its grass roots – is vital to the strength of our nation. Donors will contribute through initial lump sums and fixed, confidential percentages of their incomes over the next two years.
The fund, which has amassed £1M to date from founder donations, will be separated into two priority strands giving grants of up to £3000:
1. To help freelancers survive the present by providing hardship grants to those in immediate need.
2. To ensure a healthy future for the industry by providing innovation and creation grants for artists to produce work.
The Fund was conceived by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Olivia Colman and Francesca Moody as a longer-term supplement to other vital schemes already in existence. It will be dispersed and monitored by The Royal Theatrical Fund (RTF) in partnership with the Fleabag Support Fund (FSF). RTF began in 1839, and since its reconstitution in 1979, the Board of Directors have awarded grants, both regular and special, to members of the theatrical profession. The RTF have been working in partnership with FSF since its inception in April 2020 to award hardship grants to those in the theatre profession who have been directly affected by Covid-19. For the past several months, FSF has focused its efforts on raising significant funds to meet the unprecedented need within the UK theatre community to help feed their families, pay their rent or keep their health insurance due to the enormous impact of the pandemic. In May 2020, FSF disseminated its first wave of grants totaling over £83,000.
The Theatre Community Fund will continue to appeal to all performers, artists, producers and executives – anyone who believes in the theatrical arts and has benefited from them – to contribute to the fund, if in a position to do so.
For further information on eligibility requirements, please go to: www.theatrecommunityfund.com
