Big drop in plays staged by theatres over past decade

The number of plays and musicals staged by the UK's main subsidised theatres last year was down by almost a third compared with 10 years earlier, BBC research suggests.

In 2024, the 40 best-funded theatre companies that make their own productions - ranging from the National Theatre to the Colchester Mercury - opened 229 original productions, compared with 332 in 2014, a drop of 31%.

Funding cuts and rising costs took much of the blame, with National Theatre executive director Kate Varah recently saying many in the industry are at "breaking point".

But some venues said the shows they do stage are on a bigger scale than a decade ago, with the aim of running for longer on tour or in the West End.

Last week, actress Lesley Manville warned that new talent had "less opportunity" to develop than when she was starting out in the 1970s.

"It's going to be a diminishing discipline, because there's not always the amount of stage work available for them to go and do," she told BBC Radio 4 after winning an Olivier Award.

Leeds Playhouse chief executive and artistic director James Brining said the venue had cut its number of homegrown shows from 12 to eight a year.

"That decision to contract has been forced upon theatres because it's so expensive, and increasingly so, to make work," he told BBC News.

"We love making work. So it's heartbreaking that the amount of work you can make is reducing, and it is reducing the pipeline opportunities for artists at the beginning of their careers."

British theatre has "a serious problem" with the reduction in opportunities, added Brining, who is about to move from Leeds Playhouse to run the Edinburgh Lyceum.

Many performers and crew start their careers in theatres before going on to work in TV and film, arts education consultant and theatre blogger Carl Woodward said.

"A lot of Netflix stars and a lot of those people we see on dramas like Mr Bates vs the Post office and Adolescence cut their teeth in regional theatres.

"And if those opportunities are no longer there, then those pathways don't exist. And that is a national scandal, I think."

The theatre industry's financial pressures have had an impact on the workforce, with "chronic low pay, job insecurity, poor work/life balance," he added.

Many venues said they now co-produce more shows with other theatres or commercial operators to spread the costs and risks. That also means those productions can be on a bigger scale.

"Some individual productions that are made with the commercial sector are much, much bigger than anything we ever used to make," Birmingham Rep chief executive Rachael Thomas said.

"So for us, yes there are fewer productions coming out, but we are spending more because the productions that we are making are so much bigger than they ever used to be."

However, the Rep has lost all of its annual local council funding - once worth more than £1m a year - and smaller shows have often been squeezed out, Thomas said.

"I suppose the subsidy enables you to take the risk on the productions that are never going to recoup what they've cost, and often that will be the smaller-scale productions."

In 1995, the Rep's studio theatre staged the premiere of East Is East, four years before it became a hit British film. It couldn't afford to do a play of that scale in its studio today.

"I cannot see a world in which we could now launch a play which has got a cast size of nine or 10 in our 133-seater studio space now as a new play," Thomas said.

"For our model, and I would say for the vast majority of regional producing theatres, that is nigh on impossible."

Salisbury Playhouse artistic director Gareth Machin said audience tastes had also changed, meaning it's harder to put on "serious drama", especially outside London.

"When money is tight, people want a good night out and they don't want to take a risk," he said.

"They're probably not coming out as much as they were, so when they do come out they don't want to take a chance on something they're not sure is going to be entertaining and a fun experience.

"So there's less misery and risk."

Nottingham Playhouse chief executive and UK Theatre joint president Stephanie Sirr said she didn't recognise the picture of a drop in productions, pointing out that "it does fluctuate from year to year".

"I do think it's more difficult to produce these days," she continued.

"The costs have gone up exponentially. Things like the energy costs really impact you if you're building scenery all day, or if you're running theatre lanterns all night."

However, making more co-productions is a positive thing in most ways, and has meant "we've been able to really increase the scale of the work we produce", she said, with Nottingham's production of Dear Evan Hansen now on a major UK tour.

A handful of venues staged more original shows in 2024 than 2014. They include Leicester Curve, which has put a focus on making musicals in collaboration with commercial producers, which can then go on the road.

Curve has doubled its box office receipts over the past decade.

"By sharing resources and risk, we're able to, by default, do more work and create and present more work," chief executive Chris Stafford said.

"We are doing more with less in terms of public investment," he continued, but said the biggest challenge for many theatres would be affording essential building repairs and upgrades in the coming years.

Annual funding from Arts Councils in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and the Scottish equivalent has largely been stagnant for the past 10 years - while inflation has risen sharply - and many venues have had their local council subsidies cut. Many are also still recovering from the fallout from the pandemic.

Last year, a survey by the group Freelancers Make Theatre Work depicted "a workforce that is at breaking point".

Performer and group spokesman Paul Carey Jones said the BBC research "would come as no surprise to most theatre freelancers in the UK, who have been struggling with low rates of pay, career precarity and vulnerability, a lack of job certainty and a skills retention crisis for many years now.

"It shows the need for action from government in terms of funding for the arts, but also from the theatre industry to support its freelance workforce, on which it entirely depends."

The research for this story counted original and co-productions that opened in 2014 and 2024, including revivals, transfers and tours. They had to be professional in-person theatre productions, at least an hour long, and to have run for at least a week. If a co-production was jointly made by more than one theatre, it was counted as a single production.

The research covered the 40 venues, festivals and touring companies that produce original theatre, were operating in 2014 and 2024, and had the highest annual grants in 2024/25 from the Arts Councils of England, Wales and Northern Ireland, Creative Scotland and the Scottish government.