When The Bell reported last week on the sudden closure of the Centre for Contemporary Arts, we couldn’t help but think of the events listed on the organisation’s ‘What’s On’ webpage.
What happens now to the drumming championships, spoken word showcases or talks on AI? Whether your cup of tea or not, behind these events are theatre companies, community arts organisations and DIY collectives. Almost all of them were left out of the loop — and a lot are out of pocket.
“The money will come from me personally”, says Clare Norburn of theatrical arts charity, The Telling. Norburn had a performance of her new play, ‘Practically Imperfect’ — a re-imagining of the life of Mary Poppins author, P.L Travers — scheduled for 11 March, in the CCA’s theatre. She only found out about the centre’s closure via customers who’d bought tickets to the show, asking what was going to happen.
This tracks with our reporting. One detail we’ve heard is that immediately after CCA staff were informed they would be losing their jobs, they were all remotely logged out and blocked from accessing internal systems and emails. The result is that there is no way to contact those who are looking after the clean-up operation after the CCA’s collapse unless they get in touch first.
Norburn sent out an email to The Telling’s audience detailing the upcoming tour dates on Saturday. It wasn’t until two ticket buyers asked if she hadn’t seen the news that she was notified about the CCA’s demise. “I felt really stupid”, she recalls, “it put us on the back foot, audiences knowing more than us”.
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