Big drop in plays staged by theatres over past decade

Many performers and crew start their careers in theatres before going on to work in TV and film, arts education consultant and theatre blogger Carl Woodward said.

"A lot of Netflix stars and a lot of those people we see on dramas like Mr Bates vs the Post office and Adolescence cut their teeth in regional theatres.

"And if those opportunities are no longer there, then those pathways don't exist. And that is a national scandal, I think."

The theatre industry's financial pressures have had an impact on the workforce, with "chronic low pay, job insecurity, poor work/life balance," he added.

Many venues said they now co-produce more shows with other theatres or commercial operators to spread the costs and risks. That also means those productions can be on a bigger scale.

"Some individual productions that are made with the commercial sector are much bigger than anything we ever used to make," Birmingham Rep chief executive Rachael Thomas said.

"So for us, yes there are fewer productions coming out, but we are spending more because the productions that we are making are so much bigger than they ever used to be."

However, the Rep has lost all of its annual local council funding - once worth more than £1m a year - and smaller shows have often been squeezed out, Thomas said.

"I suppose the subsidy enables you to take the risk on the productions that are never going to recoup what they've cost, and often that will be the smaller-scale productions."

In 1995, the Rep's studio theatre staged the premiere of East Is East, four years before it became a hit British film. It couldn't afford to do a play of that scale in its studio today.

"I cannot see a world in which we could now launch a play which has got a cast size of nine or 10 in our 133-seater studio space now as a new play," Thomas said.

"For our model, and I would say for the vast majority of regional producing theatres, that is nigh on impossible."

Salisbury Playhouse artistic director Gareth Machin said audience tastes had also changed, meaning it's harder to put on "serious drama", especially outside London.

"When money is tight, people want a good night out and they don't want to take a risk," he said.

"They're probably not coming out as much as they were, so when they do come out they don't want to take a chance on something they're not sure is going to be entertaining and a fun experience.

"So there's less misery and risk."

Nottingham Playhouse chief executive and UK Theatre joint president Stephanie Sirr said she didn't recognise the picture of a drop in productions, pointing out that "it does fluctuate from year to year".

"I do think it's more difficult to produce these days," she continued.

"The costs have gone up exponentially. Things like the energy costs really impact you if you're building scenery all day, or if you're running theatre lanterns all night."

However, making more co-productions is a positive thing in most ways, and has meant "we've been able to really increase the scale of the work we produce", she said, with Nottingham's production of Dear Evan Hansen now on a major UK tour.

A handful of venues staged more original shows in 2024 than 2014. They include Leicester Curve, which has put a focus on making musicals in collaboration with commercial producers, which can then go on the road.

Curve has doubled its box office receipts over the past decade.

"By sharing resources and risk, we're able to, by default, do more work and create and present more work," chief executive Chris Stafford said.

"We are doing more with less in terms of public investment," he continued, but said the biggest challenge for many theatres would be affording essential building repairs and upgrades in the coming years.

The research for this story counted original and co-productions that opened in 2014 and 2024, including revivals, transfers and tours. They had to be professional in-person theatre productions, at least an hour long, and to have run for at least a week. If a co-production was jointly made by more than one theatre, it was counted as a single production.

The research covered the 40 venues, festivals and touring companies that produce original theatre, were operating in 2014 and 2024, and had the highest annual grants in 2024/25 from the Arts Councils of England, Wales and Northern Ireland, Creative Scotland and the Scottish government.