The New Wolsey Theatre Ipswich has just embarked on the third era of its short life with the appointment of Douglas Rintoul as Chief Executive and Artistic Director in June 2022, with his first season commencing in Spring 2023. For the previous 22 years, husband and wife team, Sarah Holmes and Peter Rowe, ran the venue as CEO and Artistic Director respectively helping to create one of the country’s most successful regional theatres.

The theatre first opened in 1979, but the operating company closed it in 1999 and was dissolved. In 2001, the theatre reopened and is now owned and operated by the New Wolsey Theatre Company. The New Wolsey Theatre Company is a registered charity with a stated mission of presenting high quality, diverse and accessible work, and operates on a not-for-profit basis. It now is a producing regional theatre, with a seating capacity of 400 and a café & bar.

Rintoul explained that he “went to the Wolsey as a teenager and did some of his first directing gigs in the noughties there, followed by numerous co-productions with the Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch whilst I was Artistic Director there so was familiar with the place, and the change of leadership was evolutionary rather than revolutionary. After a difficult couple of post covid years when audiences were slow to return, the Trust started to rebuild reserves. There is also a much better understanding of the benefit for social wellbeing from community artistic hubs like the New Wolsey”.

Holmes and Rowe embedded the principles of quality, diversity and accessibility and ran the theatre with dedication, energy, flair and skill, establishing it as an essential part of the local, regional and national landscape. Together, they established a pattern of regular successful shows that started life in Ipswich. Some of their notable successes were 20th Century Boy, a musical based on the life of Marc Bolan and the music of T. Rex written in 2012 by Peter Rowe; Our House, a musical featuring the songs of English ska band Madness, directed by Peter Rowe in 2013; and Our Blue Heaven, a musical based on Ipswich Town Football Club's 1978 FA Cup win, written and directed by Peter Rowe in 2018. The current trustees seek to build on that with a commitment to increasing the support for artistes and creatives in Suffolk and East Anglia. The theatre has always been a champion of making performing arts accessible to all.

Rintoul will continue to direct and is determined that “New Wolsey Theatre productions will resonate with the local East Anglia audience” while at the same time building co-production partnerships with companies new to the theatre including Hull Truck, Bolton Octagon, Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch, Theatre by the Lake, Mercury Theatre Colchester, and its first international partner - Les Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg. Average ticket prices have had to rise but he remains very conscious that the population of Ipswich has one of the lowest disposable incomes in East of England. He has recently directed Footloose, which has just run for three and half weeks at the theatre after playing at Pitlochry Festival Theatre to rave reviews, selling around 10,000 tickets.

Their pantomimes have established themselves as unique distinctive versions of the genre, billed as a rock 'n' roll pantomime. The UK Pantomime Association awarded 'Best Digital Pantomime' to Jack and the Beanstalk, written by Peter Rowe in 2022, with nominations for Best Sound for James Cook, and Musical Direction for Rebekah Hughes. In 2024, they were nominated for Dick Whittington and his Cat for Best Pantomime (under 500 seats) and Best Sound Design for Dan de Cruz. This year’s pantomime is Sleeping Beauty, running from 22 November 2024 - 18 January 2025 and will be live streamed from 21-30 December. It is written by Vikki Stone and directed by Douglas Rintoul (who together staged last year’s pantomime). Stone was a previous UK Pantomime Award winner for her Aladdin script at the Lyric Hammersmith in 2022. The venue has launched the Panto Pay it Forward campaign, with the aim of giving away 800 free tickets to people who might not otherwise be able to experience the magic. They expect to achieve 96% plus capacity sold for the run.

The annual accounts to 31 March 2024 showed turnover of £3.3m (2023 £3.5m), £1.6m from theatre operations, £0.3m from Front of House and £0.2m from Theatre Tax relief on their own productions. The substantial grant from the venue’s NPO status of £953k and the continued support of the Suffolk County (although that finishes this year) and Ipswich Borough Council is critical to their financial stability. The Arts Council of England funding has effectively been at a standstill for six years, nine by the end of the current cycle adding to that funding pressure. They did operate at an overall surplus of £106k in the year to March 24 (deficit of £211k to March 2023). In the last year, they sold 77,500 tickets (around 30,000 for the pantomime), with 20% new visitors to the theatre, and continue to serve around 7,000 students and have around 5,000 participations for their Creative Communities programme.

As a founder member of the ground-breaking Ramps On The Moon, the theatre was part of a consortium that strived to normalise the presence of deaf and disabled people on and off the stage and in 2017, the theatre won the UK Theatre Award for the Promotion of Diversity. The legacy of The Ramps on the Moon project, that has operated for seven years, led by Sarah Holmes and Michele Taylor and run as a consortium with Birmingham Repertory Theatre, Theatre Royal Stratford East, Nottingham Playhouse, Leeds Playhouse and Sheffield Theatres, is to embed the values and culture of disability equality into every part of the working theatre.

The venue also recognises the need to support and contribute to response to the climate emergency. Investments in building improvement have resulted in a 60% reduction in the carbon footprint in use of energy and water. Led by an Environmentally Responsibility Task Group, they seek to be guided by Green Book standards and use Julie’s Bicycle resources to reduce their environmental impact. They have achieved the Green Book baseline level for their recent productions. Their efforts saw them secure a Carbon Charter Silver Award last year.

The organisation recently won the Positive Impact in the Community award at the 2024 East Anglian Daily Times Business Awards. The theatre also won the Suffolk Business of the Year award at the same ceremony, and was named the best of all category winners.

The New Wolsey Theatre in Ipswich has established itself as a powerhouse of regional theatre, innovating and producing high quality shows despite its relatively small main house, while serving the whole local community. The delicate balance between delivering for that community in an affordable and relevant way, sharing risk with other co-producers, contracting visiting shows to a venue without flying or a proscenium arch, attracting new audiences and raising development funds is a complex one, but is a challenge that Rintoul clearly relishes, which will surely help navigate them through the challenges ahead.

Nick Wayne

Nick has been involved in Producer and Venue Organisations for twenty-five years, seen over 1200 productions, visited over 160 of the UK Venues and invested in over 30 West End Productions