Leeds-based theatre company, Red Ladder is to receive a 100% cut to its Arts Council funding, it has been announced today. The cut will be effective from April 2015, and in real terms represents a reduction in funding from £162,000 in financial year 2014/2015 to zero. The company’s only other current source of core grant in aid is £5000 per annum from Leeds City Council.
Red Ladder’s Artistic Director Rod Dixon comments: “We are bitterly, bitterly disappointed – but this is not the end for Red Ladder. We put in what we believed was a hugely exciting programme of work to 2018, and it is disappointing to know that those plans will not now come to fruition, at least not in the form we envisaged. What we do know is that we cannot and will not see this decision as a vote of no confidence, and that we will find a way to continue through our own passion and dedication to making theatre that represents the dispossessed, tells stories of the injustices of our world and changes lives. We have an army of twitter followers, friends, supporters and fans and we will survive this.”
Red Ladder champions new writing, particularly that which challenges or agitates. It is a radical theatre company with 46 years of history; acknowledged as one of Britain’s leading national touring companies producing high quality theatre contributing to social change and global justice. Founded in 1968 in London, the company’s history is rooted in the radical socialist theatre movement in Britain known as agitprop. The company moved to Leeds in the Seventies and is still based in the city.
See our review of Red Ladder’s Wrong ‘Un, an evening of high-class entertainment buttressed with unique and admirable talent.
Red Ladder’s show We’re Not Going Back opens at Durham Miner’s Gala on 9 July before going on UK tour. For tickets visit redladder.co.uk.
