Who are we investing in?

Titchfield Festival Theatre is a charity-run amateur dramatics theatre based in Hampshire and operated entirely by volunteers.

The theatre has received a number of regional accolades and is hugely popular with the local community, staging up to 22 productions per year and running an annual Shakespeare ‘Bard at the Barn’ season.

As well as encouraging active citizenship through volunteering, Titchfield Festival Theatre uses theatre as an educational tool for young people: its 2016 production of When the King Came to Town, which was free for schools, taught local children and young people about the Battle of Agincourt. This activity is complemented by a more proactive outreach programme for schools and young offenders’ institutes, which aims to discourage misuse of drugs and alcohol and reoffending.

What are we investing in?

In addition to its Great Barn site, which functions as a wedding venue outside of Shakespeare season (generating substantial unrestricted income for the charity), Titchfield Festival Theatre stages productions in a converted 1960s warehouse.

The Arts Impact Fund was able to offer the charity an unsecured loan of £150,000 to help improve this venue and make it more energy efficient with a better insulated roof for the warehouse site - complete with solar panels, a biomass boiler and a grey water recycling system. Not only will this more-efficient technology cut down utility bills - it could also generate a net income, which the theatre can reinvest into its productions and outreach programme and use to build up its financial reserves.

Read the full case study on Titchfield Festival Theatre on the Arts Impact Fund website.