Stars including Tamsin Greig, David Suchet, Jemma Redgrave, and Robert Lindsay are backing Hampstead Theatre's £1.25m appeal to help with them stage new writing.
The #HampsteadAhead campaign comes after the theatre lost its £750,000 annual Arts Council funding, and will also continue their scheme of offering cut price tickets to young people.
“This country is blessed with many brilliant writers from Osborne to Pinter to Stoppard to Lucy Prebble and they all had to start their careers somewhere," says Lindsay, who appeared in The Fever Syndrome and Prism at the venue.
"Hampstead Theatre is the perfect platform for new writers. This theatre needs your support now."
Playwright Tom Stoppard whose Rock 'N' Roll opens at Hampstead on December 6, said: “Just being here makes me feel the necessity of theatres like this, not just surviving but flourishing. It’s a lot to do with succeeding generations of writers."
The funding cut has forced a less risk-taking, more commercial tilt to programming, without compromising the theatre's mission to stage new work for North London audiences.
As they announced a new season including world premieres and a UK premiere of plays by April de Angelis, Christopher Hampton, and Stephen Adly Giurgis, Development Director Cathy Baker said they had considered other models when the axe fell.
"We looked at co-producing or rentals, but it would have meant no control over what we did," she said.
"We decided to carry on producing our own plays and commissioning writers, and evolved a business plan that relies on ticket sales and philanthropy."
The appeal has already been boosted with £1m pledged by a few of Hampstead’s supporters and trustees. Baker says their "core audience," many from NW postcodes, renew their annual membership, and come to every show.
"They are the backbone of the theatre," she said. "New writing is in our DNA. We have proved we can still programme new, intelligent, entertainment. It doesn't have to be Agatha Christie - and if it was we would lose donors and that loyal audience."
Box office is "thankfully going in the right direction," with a two-fold increase in sales, since programming "with a more commercial slant."
"And Rock 'N' Roll will open to the biggest advance Hampstead has ever seen."
Other income includes applications to trusts and foundations, corporate membership, gifts and sponsorship of individual productions, but Baker says no sum is too small.
"We are open to donations of any size, even £3 when buying a ticket will be supporting emerging writers and artists, new faces that go on to do good things.
"We are absolutely committed and single minded that our plan A will work. This is not an emergency appeal this is the future of theatre."
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