This spring has seen us launch the house young audiences cohort, our new three-year project, of focussed support for venues committed to developing their theatre offer for children and young people.

We’re pleased to announce that we are now working with the following house network venues who were selected following application: The Garage in Norwich, Queen’s Theatre in Hornchurch, Ropetackle Arts Centre in Shoreham-by-Sea, Chichester Festival Theatre in Chichester and The Old Town Hall in Hemel Hempstead will join our home venue Farnham Maltings in Farnham to create a six-strong venue young audiences cohort.

Over the next three years, we will be supporting the cohort with time, space and connection with one another; to champion new ways of thinking that further their plans. We’ll also be working with The Audience Agency to gather learnings, and a deeper evaluative process to measure change and impact over the three year period. Findings will be shared back with the house network and wider sector, with the ambition of helping more organisations to broaden their offer and develop young audiences.

Harriet, Senior Producer for house says “we were thrilled to have so many high-quality applications for our new house young audiences cohort. After a challenging selection process, we’re really excited to be start work with the six venues who represent a good geographical spread across the South East, and range of scale and stages in their young audiences programming and audience development. Our next steps are heading out to each of the venues to meet the teams in person and talk through their aims and ambitions, before we bring the full cohort together with the house team and The Audience Agency next month.”

Katy, Executive Producer & Deputy CEO for Farnham Maltings adds “running the cohort over a three year timescale gives us the opportunity to work closely together over a longer period of time, and to better understand the long-term impact and power of bringing people together to share ideas, learnings and support; and how their relationship to being part of a cohort helps frame their organisational aims and ambitions. We look forward to sharing more with the house network as this new way of working evolves.”

Image: The Shivers, emma + pj
Photography © Alex Brenner