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An integral part of Roedean
From Junior House nativity plays to whole school productions and House Dance and Drama competitions, the Performing Arts are integral to Roedean. We are proud that many ORs, have gone on to excel in careers as actors, dancers, musicians and producers to name a few. Central to this is our theatre, built in the early 1990s, through the incredibly generous support of our community. The Theatre is a space our students, staff, parents and Old Roedeanians can come together as a community. It is also an important resource to raise income, and to build links in the local community by making it available for external hire.
Time for the auditorium to be refurbished
The facilities we have are fantastic, with recent investment in our backstage area and stage lighting. We needed to update and improve our auditorium in order to ensure all our audiences and guests have an enjoyable and high quality experience whenever they use our theatre. With 30 years of almost daily use, the seating served us well but was extremely worn and many of the seats are in an unusable state of repair. We therefore wanted to use the opportunity provided by a quieter summer for our theatre lets to move ahead with the refurbishments. However, as you will understand, due to our reduced income over the last two years, we needed our community’s support to carry out the works.
What did we do with your support?
The School has been able to fund most of the £400,000 costs, but we needed your help to raise the final £75,000 to ensure that we could complete the improvements. Incredibly our community donated £85,000, meaning we could offset more of the refurbishment costs and allow the School to allocate more funds to other much needed projects.
We have:
• Increased capacity from 320 to 355 seats.
• Improved our energy efficiency with a new LED lighting system (which will pay for itself in 7 years).
• Increased the amount of accessible seating.
• Improved the audience experience by facing 40% more seats directly towards the stage.
• Improved the acoustics by installing wooden wall panelling and replacing the metal balustrades with wooden ones.
As well as all of this, the Theatre has also received a long overdue refurbishment with new carpets, re-painted walls and a new stage curtain.
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“Putting on a performance is such a terrific team effort. I had only been at Roedean for a few weeks when I got involved in a school play. I was asked to hem the dress of the “star”! I was thrilled - it was a wonderful way of meeting girls from other houses and years - all with a common purpose. It doesn’t matter if you are acting, painting scenery, hemming costumes, or lighting the production, there is room for all skills. If you were ever involved in a production at school in any capacity please buy a seat and help to ensure that the next generation of Roedean theatrical talent has the most up to date facilities and that the brilliant Roedean theatrical tradition continues.”
Rita Skinner (Oldak, No. 3, 1958-63), Chair of the original Theatre Appeal
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