A young pearl

FACING its 30th anniversary, the Darlington-based children’s theatrecreating CTC Theatre company, which is steadily building a worldwide reputation, suddenly found itself facing a funding crisis.

“I can’t say it wasn’t a shock opening a letter just before Christmas 2007 saying that we only had guaranteed Arts Council money for another 12 months,” says Miranda Thain who bravely set about rebuilding the future of the organisation following the retirement of artistic director Paul Harman.

“Paul announced his retirement about 18 months ago and that meant we went through a period of change and restructuring as well as taking a look at the family of artists who have contributed to CTC over the last 15 years,” says Thain who has opted for the title creative producer and moved away from the idea of the two-person operating structure of general manager and artistic director.

She wanted to allow CTC “to do what it does best and recruit the best theatre and dance creators to make work for young people”

between tots and teens. Thain went back to the Arts Council with a new strategic plan to retain the best of the old and to review and re-brand CTC – one priority being to change the confusing name of the company from CTC (originally the Cleveland Theatre Company) which dates back to its Teesside days.

“We obviously didn’t know how traumatic this period was going to be but I was delighted to open another letter just before Christmas last year to read that we had been given funding until March 2011 which meant that we were getting £154,000 this year and a 2.7 per increase for 2010-11.

I’d been on tenterhooks awaiting the letter which, as usual, was a decision which seemed to have the Arts Council tied in knots,”

Thain says.

She confesses that the name change is still ‘top secret’ and is likely to be announced in March, to coincide with the change of financial year. “The cost of creating this new identity is going to be around £8,000 because we have to re-brand everything from the website to our letterheads. The trouble with us being CTC Theatre was that the name meant Cleveland Theatre Company Theatre, which only made sense to people who knew out history,” says Thain about the organisation which moved from Teesside to Darlington Arts Centre to secure its long-term future.

The other difficulty remains with the UK’s attitude towards children’s theatre. Many still think this involves children taking part in shows rather than adults staging productions for children. CTC has challenged this thinking by regularly staging the Take-Off Festival, which brings the best of overseas work to places like Darlington Arts Centre.

This year, Take-Off will share the limelight with CTC’s 30th anniversary and, excitingly, a link-up with Theatre Direct of Toronto, Canada, to stage a version of the North American company’s work, Beneath The Banyan Tree, looking at the difficulties of immigration.

“A collaboration with Theatre Direct of our contemporary dance piece, Five, will tour Canada in June. Then Beneath The Banyan Tree (which will visit the Arts Centre, Stockton’s Arc and Queen’s Hall, Hexham) tours the UK in October and November. It will be aimed at eight to 12 year olds,” says Thain who is also looking at a 2010 operetta, written by Finegan Kruckemeyer and composed by Martyn Harry, of Durham University, called My Mother Told Me Not to Stare, which will focus on the strange sayings that adults reserve for use with children.

“Things like ‘don’t stare it’s rude’ and ‘if the wind changes your face will stay like that’ are often said. Our production will be based in a village called Upper Crumble where children are going missing because they don’t follow these rules,” says Thain.

This is a typical subject for the UK whereas Theatre Direct takes on the more challenging subjects of immigration and HIV. “In some ways they are ahead of us, although the Canadians find the whole idea of making shows, like our dance piece Five, for the 0-6 age group totally baffling,” says the CTC boss who is proud of being the same age as CTC and determined that both will be around for a lot longer.

■ Odyssey, directed by Paul Harman and adapted from Homer, is touring schools for 7- 11 year olds from Monday to February 11

■ Macbeth, directed by Chris Connaughton, is taking bookings for schools, aimed at the 11-16 audience, between March 2 and March 27. Ring Diann Allenby on 01325-352004

■ Five, a contemporary dance piece for 4-6 year olds, choreographed by Kitty Winter with music by Wayne Walker- Allen, is also taking bookings.

ctctheatre.org.uk