Gaiety theatre welcomes £200k cash boost
Theatre bosses have been awarded a cash injection of almost £200,000.
The Gaiety in Ayr has received the cash from Creative Scotland to further its “cultural and creative engagement with communities”.
Six Creative Practitioners will work in Ayr, Girvan and Maybole to deliver “meaningful art, real change for communities and creative development for themselves and their team”.
The Creative Place Programme, funded by Creative Scotland, and Time to Shine Youth Arts Hub has inspired the scheme, which sees the Gaiety pair artists with “marginalised, rural and economically disadvantaged groups in communities”.
Funding helped them employ more than 100 artists last year to create new work in collaboration with South Ayrshire Council and key communities. The work has included teaming with Ayr Women’s Hub to support their emergency responses to the Covid pandemic.
It has developed into a project involving an all-female writing and filmmaking team working with local women to co-create a film about their pandemic experiences. The Gaiety said it will work with South Ayrshire Council to “consolidate and build on a series of partnerships that will have an enhanced and extended life after the end of the funding period”. The likes of the Scottish Violence Reduction Unit - a worldrenowned unit set to open a new project in North Ayr - is among those who will team up with the Gaiety.Young Carers, Dementia Prestwick and Enable are others set to be involved in the long term outlook of the scheme.
Ayr Gaiety Partnership chief executive, Jeremy Wyatt, said:“We’re looking forward to commissioning creative practitioners to work with communities in Ayr, Girvan and Maybole. We are pleased to be able build further on our existing professional development support for emerging artists and those at the early stages of their career.”