Creativity and community come together once more in Berkshire, as Corn Exchange Newbury announce their autumn programme for 2022. From a packed August full of family treats to the classic Christmas pantomime, this season features traditional favourites and new adventures for everyone to enjoy.
The season features performances both outdoors and on the Corn Exchange stage, including the legendary Plested, Brown & Wilsher pantomime, Made at 101, The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Milton Jones. It also runs in tandem with the extensive engagement programme for the local community, including the Corn Exchange Youth Theatre and the wide range of Ageing Creatively courses. Both on stage and off, there’s something for everyone at Corn Exchange Newbury.
To celebrate the news, we’ve spoken with Director Katy Griffiths about this brand new season.
For those who may not be familiar with your previous work, could you please introduce yourself?
I’m Katy, the Director at the Corn Exchange. We’re an arts centre in Newbury, West Berkshire with a 400 seat auditorium, 40 seat cinema, a dedicated learning centre which hosts a range of creative courses and classes, as well as a major programme of outdoor performance that often showcases the work that we support at our creation centre 101, the national centre for arts in public space.
The team have just announced the Corn Exchange Newbury’s autumn programme.
How are you feeling about launching this new season?
I’m really excited; programming is one of the things I enjoy most about my role. We spend months putting the plans in place for each season with a real focus on finding something for everyone to enjoy. When the brochure arrives ready for the launch it’s a huge sense of achievement, especially after the last couple of years when our programme was limited by covid, and we can’t wait to see which of the events proves most popular with our audiences.
Are there any productions you are particularly excited to welcome in?
I’d like to say all of them(!) although we are particularly excited about our pantomime Jack and the Beanstalk. We produce the show ourselves working with an incredible creative team and last year we won the UK Pantomime special award for innovation, which was a real honour. Panto is a such a brilliant festive tradition and it’s the first experience of live theatre for so many young people – it’s really important that we make sure it is a great one.
The season will include a range of family friendly productions, and offers something for all audiences. Why do you think it is so important for venues to offer a broad and varied variety of productions?
We’re here to serve our community, and that means making our work accessible and relevant to as many people as possible. We work really hard to try and achieve that balance as well as ensuring great quality and a variety of different art-forms in the main performance programme alongside a huge range of different types of creative activities for our community to take part in. We also have our free outdoor performances, which really helps to break down barriers and make sure that everyone can experience our events.
After a turbulent few years for the theatre industry, how does it feel to be the director of such an exciting arts venue?
It’s a huge privilege to lead the Corn Exchange; it’s an amazing organisation with a brilliant team of staff and volunteers who make all the work we do possible. As you say, it’s been a difficult few years, but we stayed focused on what we could do rather than what we couldn’t and continued to support our community with creative opportunities throughout that time. Thankfully this means that our audiences haven’t forgotten about us, and it’s been joyous to welcome them back – we know that taking part in creative activities or enjoying a night out at a live event is a huge boost to wellbeing, and we’re determined to help make that possible for as many people in West Berkshire as possible.
What are your hopes for the future of Corn Exchange Newbury?
It’s fair to say we’re a hugely ambitious organisation; I’d like to think we are redefining what it means to be a community arts centre in the 21st Century. The next few years will really see the consolidation of all the work we’ve been doing to support artists working in public space at 101 alongside the expansion of our engagement work in the community with plans to secure a new permanent home for this work and an increase in the activities we deliver for older people and those who we support through our social prescribing sessions.
For a full list of productions featuring in the Corn Exchange Newbury’s Autumn Season, click here.
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