Curve Theatre celebrates record year for touring productions

Curve in Leicester

The Curve Theatre in Leicester has published its 2023/24 annual review, showing its most successful year yet for touring productions.

Between April 2023 and March 2024, the theatre’s productions and co-productions reached over 1.2m audience members.

Shows included 42nd Street at Sadler’s Wells, The Wizard of Oz at the London Palladium, and Grease at the Dominion Theatre, among others, generating £46m in box office income.

Curve welcomed more than 250,000 visitors and produced 11 shows under its Made at Curvebanner, including a world premiere adaptation of The Owl Who Came for Christmas and Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Evita.

The theatre reported an annual turnover of £14,808,108.

In addition to performances, Curve engaged 27,000 participants through its creative programmes, which cater to schools, colleges, community groups, and artists.

It included 1,500 individuals involved in the Neighbour-Hubs programme, which brings theatre activities to five areas in Leicester.

Curve also supported local talent, with over 1,000 Midlands-based creatives participating in various projects.

Nearly 500 local artists accessed free rehearsal space through the Curve Connect network, and team members provided almost 1,500 hours of free support and guidance.

Curve’s chief executive Chris Stafford and artistic director Nikolai Foster said: “2023/24 was another terrific year for Curve with programmes both on and off stage going from strength to strength. Against a backdrop of immense challenges with navigating rising costs across the business, we are delighted we were able to deliver a positive financial outcome for the year, and performances on our stages in Leicester and our co-productions on the road sold a total of over 1.5million tickets making it our most successful year to date.

“Whilst we might toast a successful year for Curve, we look to the future with caution; the continued increase in costs, standstill public funding and the demands of capital asset replacement will require careful navigation if our theatre is to continue to thrive into the future. As always thanks to our incredible audiences, our donors, sponsors and public funders especially Arts Council England and Leicester City Council, and the biggest thanks to our fantastic team of staff and freelancers; they are the beating heart of our theatre, and Curve would be nothing without them.”

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