Professional playing at The Rose
Last Update 07-Mar-2008
When The Nonentities Society opened The Rose after 12 years playing in St.Oswald's, professional theatre returned to Kidderminster.
No professional theatre had been seen in the town since The Playhouse had closed in 1968. No one, other than The Nonentities Society, seemed willing or able to do anything about it.
The first professional presentation at The Rose was, unusually, a jazz group, Talisker Jazz, but this was followed quickly by ATC and Incubus. These first independent promotions by The Nonentities were made possible by West Midlands Arts subsidising each show, sometimes quite heavily. The Nonentities took eager advantage of this and over the next two or three years presented all sorts of professional shows, from chamber music, through extreme avant-garde to traditional classics. Not all were good, it must be admitted, and not all attracted good audiences but the professional account remained in the black. This, in itself, was unusual for a glance at the official history shows that The Playhouse rarely made a profit. At least The Nonentities General Manager of the time had the good grace not to boast too much about his "success".
What should be kept in mind here is that in those early years and in the 18 or so years since, a Society of between 100 and 150 people cheerfully manned FOH, Bar, Box-Office, gave up days of holiday to arrange and work on "get-ins", lighting rigs and general ASM work for professional companies, worked on "get-outs" until 1 in the morning (and still went to work at 8 a.m. next day) : and all this at the expense of their own Society, for after three years the WMA subsidy went and The Society had to pay the full cost of all the touring companies. That could be, and often was, £1,000 a night.
It is staggering to realise that over 70 companies and well over 110 professional productions have been presented at The Rose under these conditions in less than 20 years.
Recently the local Arts Development Office has been able to direct a couple of gratefully received pump-priming grants to the theatre and the Awards 4 All scheme of The National Lottery provided money towards the running of week long Residency with master-classes for local High Schools by ATC. But, generally, professional playing in Wyre Forest District still depends on the goodwill and the money of The Nonentities Society.