Lyric Hammersmith Celebrates 'One Year On'
Marking 12 months since reopening of building in April 2015
The Lyric Hammersmith has held a special event called One Year On to celebrate a year since the building reopened following its major capital development and creation of the Reuben Foundation Wing.
The building reopened in April 2015 with Sir Alan Parker’s world famous stage musical Bugsy Malone, directed by the Lyric’s Artistic Director Sean Holmes. The critically acclaimed, Olivier nominated production returns to the theatre in June 2016.
The Lyric say their capital project was the most significant cultural development to take place in West London for decades. It included the construction of the Reuben Foundation Wing, housing a range of state of the art facilities including rehearsal, dance, digital, film and recording studios. The existing building was re-furbished with a new Peyton and Byrne café and bar, and now benefits from improved sustainability and disabled access.
The new building has enabled the Lyric to expand its unique position within the UK's cultural ecology and its dual commitment to producing the highest quality contemporary theatre, whilst nurturing the creativity of young people.
In 2016 the Lyric celebrates their ongoing engagement with the local community and young people, the success of the shows they have produced and the classes, workshops and talks they have run. Their successes over the past year include:
The Lyric celebrated its most successful box office year to date with 158,964 people attending 639 performances at the venue, with both Bugsy Malone and the Christmas pantomime Cinderella playing to over 90% capacity.
Over the last year the Lyric has won several awards including the Get Creative Family Arts Festival Audience Choice Award for Best Venue. Bugsy Malone was nominated for Best Musical Revival at the Olivier Awards and won the Also Recognised Award’s Best Ensemble Performance.
The Lyric is proud to call Hammersmith their home. In 2016 they are celebrating the 20th anniversary of their Free First Night scheme, part of their long term partnership with the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham, through which they give free tickets to people who live or work locally. Through this scheme last year they provided 2,354 Free First Night tickets to people who may not have had an opportunity to see theatre before. And as part of this commitment to the local community, they also provided 2,000 tickets to Hammersmith & Fulham schools.
The 'new' Lyric is now home to an innovative partnership of like-minded arts organisations, and working together with these 9 partners they have delivered 1,433 classes and projects, which had attendances of over 26,000 young people. During this year, 70% of these classes were £3.50 or under per session and the Lyric provided 33 free bursary places to their acting classes alone.
The Lyric have continued to nurture the creativity of some of the hardest to reach young people through their Targeted Work programmes. Both their START programme for young people that are NEET (not in education, employment or training), which celebrates its 10th anniversary in 2016 and the newly introduced REWIND programme supported 121 of the hardest to reach young people last year, providing the participants with new skills to confidently re-engage with education and employment. The Lyric then employed 3 young people from the START programme to work in their front of house team.
The Lyric also furthered commitment to diversify the cultural sector’s workforce by training and supporting young people from all backgrounds through their various projects and schemes, both on and off-stage. Examples of this commitment are:
- Sherice Pitter, who was first introduced to the theatre when she joined one of the Lyric’s programmes at 14, became an apprentice at the theatre which led to her being awarded Creative & Cultural Skills Apprentice of the Year 2016 and then being employed as a permanent member of staff within the Lyric’s development department.
- Krystal Dockery and Karl Queensborough, who started their stage careers in the Lyric Young Company and last Christmas were cast as Cinderella and Prince Charming in the Christmas pantomime Cinderella.
- Providing 7 apprenticeships across their producing, box office, young people’s and technical departments this year.
Last financial year the Lyric had a turnover of £5.7million, with only 25% of their income coming from subsidy, which means for every £1 they receive they generate a further £3.
The Lyric continued to demonstrate commitment to environmental sustainability, and for the fourth year in a row has been awarded the highest Industry Green rating of 3 stars by the environmental charity, Julie’s Bicycle, the first theatre to achieve this.
The Lyric is working towards a BREEAM rating of ‘excellent’ for its building, the government’s sustainability kitemark across all public buildings, and continues to look to the future, increasing the theatre’s sustainability through their newly installed green sedum roof, improving air quality and by installing more than 95% of the theatre’s lighting as LED.
You can read more about the Lyric and what's on here
April 29, 2016
