Help Conn Artists to produce shows & keep theatre alive

Once again, Conn Artists Theatre Company, have recently received the hugely disappointing news that our grant application to Arts Council England for our next tour has not been awarded funding.

The last time we received Arts Council funding was in 2019 for a regional theatre tour of George Eliot’s Silas Marner which had outstanding reviews and positive reactions from audiences.

Since then, coming out of the pandemic we have all had to face the ‘Cost of Living’ crisis which has had a further crippling effect on the theatre industry and reduced funding opportunities. We have managed to adapt and keep going with smaller scale tours of 2 and 3 hander plays such as A Perfect Likeness (UK premiere) which we toured 2021-2023. We followed this with a more commercial piece The Haunting (again with only a cast of 3 actors) which played 53 performances touring to 41 regional theatres. Neither of these production projects did we choose to crowd-fund to help support the tours.

Our last crowd-funding campaign on GoFundMe was for the beautiful and uplifting revival of JM Barrie’s Mary Rose which we toured in 2022. We managed to successfully deliver that tour with your help on a shoe-string budget. We asked a lot of everyone involved; not least the goodwill, love and dedication from all the artsists involved.

Our next production is an exciting and brand new stage adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd adapted by Nick Young and myself, Ross Muir for an ensemble cast of 5 actor-musicians. It is the same scale of production as Mary Rose was and desperately needs funding. We have 47 tour dates to many venues of which we have toured to before who when they heard we were touring Far from the Madding Crowd couldn't wait to book us again - which means we must be doing something right!

We are passionate about what we do and belive the productions we tour are hugely impactful and transformative to people’s lives.

Although, the Arts Council was unable to fund our tour in their Decision Letter they said the following:

“Our decision doesn’t mean that we think your project wasn’t worthy of funding, or that your idea isn’t a valuable one. We receive a lot more applications than we can fund".

Sadly the UK is not investing enough money into the arts at the moment which is so regrettable and damaging to our health and well-being as a society. According to a recent report entitled The State of the Arts by the University of Warwick: “The UK has some of the lowest levels of government spending on the arts in all of Europe.....England invested 6 percent less in cultural spending per person between 2010 and 2022, falling behind peers like Germany, France, and Finland. Those countries increased their arts spending in that 12-year period by 22 percent, 25 percent, and 70 percent, respectively.”

So please help us to keep regional theatre alive.

By donating you will be supporting our cast and creatives across our company, improving the quality of how much we can invest into the show itself, helping us to promote it to wider audiences, pay our dedicated team a fair wage for their hard work and ultimately to create unforgettable memories to the thousands of audience members that are part of our live show experience.

PHOTOS & PRESS QUOTES from some of our past productions:

“Hauntingly beautiful”

(Theatre South East on Mary Rose)

★★★★★

“a riveting example of ensemble theatre at its very best.”

(The Argus on Silas Marner)

★★★★★

“Conn Artists has made regional theatre feel in ruder health overnight.”

(The Stage on The Four Men)

★★★★

Far from the Madding Crowd will open at Theatre Royal Winchester on Tuesday 4th February 2025 before touring through-out the UK in Spring until Saturday 26th April 2025. Every penny you donate will be invested straight into our production and will have a meaningful and lasting impact. If you are unable to donate please help us to spread the word by sharing across your social media with friends, or by buying a ticket to one of the tour dates near you. A full list of our confirmed tour dates will be listed soon on our website: www.conn-artists.co.uk

If we can raise the following:

£1000 will help with our costumes

£2000 will help with our set and technical equipment hire

£4000 will help towards essential van hire and travel costs

£6000 will help with 50% of our accommodation on tour costs (which totals £12,000)

By joining us on this adventure you become part of the Conn Artists family. Thank you!

Ross Muir

Conn Artists Theatre Company - Producer and Actor