Queen’s Theatre turns red!
The Queen’s Theatre in Hornchurch turned red last night. Red lights were seen inside the building as a ‘standby’, part of a national campaign to prepare itself for its long-awaited opening and to let the community know they will be opening their doors again very soon.
Due to the Covid 19 pandemic the theatre had to close its doors but is now gearing itself up for reopening. The theatre is a very well established and vital part of the community here in Havering and locals have missed the live performances.
The Government has recently announced a support package of £1.5 bn for our arts and culture and the local theatre hope to benefit from this.
Executive Director at the Queen’s Theatre Matthew Russell told the Havering Daily:
“Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch welcomes the very important recent news about the significant COVID-19 related rescue support for arts and culture across the UK, and are grateful to everyone involved throughout the industry and government for all the hard work and negotiation putting this in place.
“It’s great to see the vital life-changing importance of culture on people’s lives, health and well-being rec?ognised nationally, and likewise, the significant part theatres play in supporting communities and great placemaking.
“The creative economy is a complicated and fast-growing affair, and we await details of what a wide-ranging package that needs to achieve many things, may hopefully mean for arts and culture in Havering, including the Theatre. This is time-sensitive for many of us, but it will probably be some weeks at the earliest before that’s very clear.
“We also look forward to urgently hearing accompanying essential news about government guidelines on when and how theatres can safely re-open for live performance.
“In the meantime, we’re incredibly grateful for the generous support our audiences and partners have already shown for the theatre in this difficult period, one in which almost all of the charity’s income has temporarily dried up.
“We’re so looking forward to re-opening the building for work with our much-loved community in the first instance, as soon as we can, saying hello to many different people once more, with the latest news on the resumption of some of our upcoming popular learning and participation activities to follow this week.”
