The theatres aiming to bring people together

Landmark Theatres' debut production, Rent, reflects its aims to create something artistic that it feels proud of

A theatre producer said his company would aim to bring people together in areas which do not often engage with the arts.

Landmark Theatres, which operates in Peterborough, plans to bring theatre to audiences that do not traditionally attend and help combat loneliness and alienation.

Creative director and chief executive officer, Paul Jepson said: "[Theatre] is a place within which community is essential."

He said its debut production, Jonathan Larsen’s musical Rent, reflected its aims because it portrays an artistic community which is "making of their lives something which they feel proud of".

Paul Jepson, Landmark Theatres' creative director and chief executive officer, said it wanted to bring art to those who traditionally had "low cultural engagement"

Mr Jepson said Landmark Theatres' mission was to bring art to "the widest possible demographic" in places that "traditionally had low cultural engagement together with relatively low investment in arts infrastructure".

It currently operates The Key Theatre and The New Theatre in Peterborough and venues across North Devon.

He added there were "multiple reasons" why people in Peterborough had not been engaging with the arts, which included not knowing what was available to them or some arts not being on offer.

"The third and very, very important thing is that they haven’t necessarily felt that it was for them," he said.

Mr Jepson said their theatres offered Peterborough a meeting place, where people could "participate and learn and explore their own creativity"

In the first week the company was in the city, Mr Jepson tasked his colleagues with getting as many people as possible who had never been in the theatre into it for the first time.

They hired acts to target them and those audiences are returning.

"For example, rather than putting a gloomy play on about what it’s like to be Polish, it’s better to get a decent reputation for Polish comedy," he said.

"We do Polish comedy in Polish and for some acts we now sell out."

Mr Jepson said their theatres offered Peterborough a meeting place, where people could "participate and learn and explore their own creativity".

"An arts organisation is like a layered cake for what it can do," he said.

"There’s a base-line economic benefit but what it provides much more is a place where people can come and engage with theatre in all its glory.

"Usually [in life] you want to say things and you shouldn’t or can’t and the theatre is a place where that is put on its head - to be around that is kind of amazing for people and it can be quite transformative.

"It can transform their attitudes to the life around them and also give them a fantastic night out."

Paul Jepson said they offered opportunities to make people "feel ownership" of their theatre and "the more ownership they have the more they’ll turn up"

With this premise, its debut production was not picked out of thin air.

The Tony award-winning musical Rent follows a group of young artists living in Manhattan as they navigate love and the impact of HIV/AIDS.

Characters forego a life of stability for the sake of art and remind the audience of the importance of pursuing their dreams.

Mr Jepson said it was "quite a neat choice" as it reflected what they were trying to do.

"You do a piece of work because you want to do it and also because you think you might have a chance of selling it," he said.

"But at the centre of Rent you have a community of artists who are making of their lives something which they feel proud of and something that they wish to identify themselves with.

"People who are artists are in some senses quite silly, but they shouldn’t be underestimated in their capacity to affect change."

He said theatres were "tremendously helpful for any community".

"[They] also deliver significant economic and educational benefits," he said.

"The best way to sort out an inner city is to stick a theatre in it, and to fund it properly. There’s no better way."

Rent runs at Peterborough’s New Theatre from 20-29 June before visiting the Queen’s Theatre, Barnstaple from 3 July.