Theatre Royal Wakefield to remain closed until 2021

The Theatre Royal Wakefield has announced it will not re-open for live performances until Spring 2021.
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In a statement, Katie Town Executive Director for the theatre, said: "Following on from recent announcements in the media and comments made by the culture secretary on Wednesday last week, we have taken the decision that Theatre Royal Wakefield will not re-open for live performances until Spring 2021.

"This decision has not been taken lightly. Like many other theatres, Theatre Royal Wakefield relies heavily on the income from pantomime an dour associated activities during the festive season.

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"However, in light of the fat that we still have no clear idea when we will be able to re-open for public performances, and the fact that the process for accessing the £1,57bn of emergency funding for the arts has only just been unveiled, we feel that the risk of proceeding at this stage is simply to ohigh.

The Theatre Royal Wakefield has announced it will not re-open for live performances until Spring 2021.The Theatre Royal Wakefield has announced it will not re-open for live performances until Spring 2021.
The Theatre Royal Wakefield has announced it will not re-open for live performances until Spring 2021.

"If we are to safeguard our building, staff and operations for the future then we must do everything we can to limit the risks we take at this point.

"We understand that this will be hugely disappointing for our audiences, friends and colleagues and for this we are truly sorry. We hope to be able to return stronger than ever with a huge range of fantastic shows and of course that all important pantomime in 2021.

"We are pleased to be able to announce that we have managed to reschedule most of the autumn programme, including our pantomime, to 2021.

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"Customers with tickets booked for shows in 2020 will be contacted by our team to advise of the new dates for their performances. We would like to ask for your patience at this time whilst we work our way through the huge number of customers in date order.

"During our closure we will be restarting a lot of our learning and participation work with sessions beginning very soon. We wouldn't be able to continue this vital work without the generous support of the people of the Wakefield district.

"If you'd like to help us secure the future of theatre in Wakefield, please consider giving a dontation, you can find more about that here."