Stuart Rogers and the challenge facing Birmingham Rep

May 25 2010 By Alun Thorne

Birmingham Post Editor Alun Thorne talks to The Rep’s executive director Stuart Rogers about making the numbers stack up during one of the most challenging periods in the theatre’s history.

The Birmingham Repertory Theatre – or the Rep as it is affectionately known – has never shied away from taking a risk or two.

In recent years it has built its reputation on challenging productions, be it the infamous Behzti that saw hundreds of Sikhs protesting outside the theatre, to less controversial but equally thought-provoking plays like Arthur and George that examine race and class in modern Britain.

But the theatre is currently embarking on a transformation that could have more potential pitfalls than anything it has ever attempted on the stage.

Come next year, the theatre company will leave its home in Centenary Square for two years while it is completely overhauled as part of the neighbouring £193 million project to build a new Library of Birmingham. And, as excited as he is about the prospect of the rejuvenated theatre, executive director Stuart Rogers is under no illusions about the challenges that lie ahead.

“The workshops have already gone to a unit in Sparkbrook while we have also recently taken some space rehearsals in Edgbaston so the project is very much under way,” he said.

“We have to be completely out of the building by 2011 and then our main administrative centre will be in the Jewellery Quarter.

‘‘There is no doubt that there will be challenges, particularly in terms of communications, but having been to the QE Hospital recently and seen the undertaking they have of moving two hospitals, it puts what we are trying to do into perspective. Compared to that it will be a doddle and I am just in awe of the challenges they face compared to ours.”

That said, the company has already had to streamline its staff as it prepares for a couple of years on the road although Mr Rogers is confident this is just temporary pain for significant long-term gain for the theatre.

“We will certainly have to restructure how we run the business over the next two years and the city council and the Arts Council are being very generous in supporting us,” he said.

“However, there have had to be redundancies. We employ around 85 permanent and 35 to 40 part-time staff and we have lost about a quarter across the board because revenues will certainly be reduced as will the number of productions we undertake.

‘‘However, we would hope that when we are back in the theatre in 2013 we will be taking these numbers back on again and almost certainly more.”

The transformation project will see the theatre’s facade remain but almost everything behind it completely remodelled with new rehearsal rooms, dressing rooms, offices, workshops and costume departments.

However, the piece de resistance for the theatre is that it will share a new foyer with the Library of Birmingham and will also share a new 300-seat studio theatre.

“It is very exciting as the 10,000 people who use the library every day will now use our foyers whereas at the moment there is probably fewer than 1,000 a day who might go through the theatre,” he said.

As with any theatre, the major recurring issue is always finance and while The Rep has put itself on a sound footing under the stewardship of Mr Rogers during the past eight years, the new development work and taking the company to a variety of new venues for two years is not without its pressures.

Nevertheless, Mr Rogers is quick to point out that it is not as if this is a project that has been foisted upon the theatre.

“In terms of the new library, we didn’t just embrace it, we actively courted it,” he said.

He said the theatre had always aspired to extend at some point and had got as far as working with the city council to form a planning framework for the car park next to the theatre as a potential development site when the new library plans came along.