MAC GETS NEW THEATRE - BUT STILL DARK FOR 18 MONTHS

31-10-2007

Rebuilding plans for Birmingham's popular Midland Arts Centre have received a boost with an extra £800,000 grant for a new studio theatre - but there's no sign of any U-turn on plans to halt its activities for 18 months and make more than 180 staff redundant.

The additional performing space, capable of hosting dance, music and theatre will seat 140 people, and comes courtesy of an £800,000 grant from the Charles Henry Foyle Trust.

Keen students of the MAC will know that the current reception area is built around the original building, known as Foyle House, and there is also a Foyle Gallery, both named in honour of the Trust which contributed £70,000 to the original fundraising campaign in the 1960s.

Their latest donation will feed into a £13.5 million rebuilding project aimed at improving the Centre overall, and upgrading facilities for its in-house dance company Sampad.

The positive long-term news has to be balanced against the 182 redundancies for existing staff, who were originally led to believe that MAC would operate a programme from other centre while it went dark.

It means that their unique programme of touring theatre, left-field music events and world cinema will simply go AWOL from the city for more than a year.

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