Leicester's flagship theatre Curve to close down for series of repair works
7th July 2010
Leicester’s flagship £61 million theatre is to be closed for up to six weeks this summer for maintenance and improvement work to be carried out. Bosses at Curve, in Rutland Street, have decided to take a summer break for the first time since it opened in November 2008.
Acting chief executive Pat Weller said the building would be shut to the public from Monday until the beginning of September. The floor surface will be relaid because of “wear and tear”, the electrics will be checked and improvements made to the cafe and bar areas.
Mrs Weller, who will run the theatre until March when a permanent chief executive will take over, said: “All large theatres have these breaks between their seasons normally.
“Curve has not had that so far because it’s a new building. It’s a normal thing to do for a large theatre. We’ll do it this year and it will probably happen next year too. We’ll be using the time to do all the normal maintenance. When we re-open in September, customers will see a cleaner, brighter theatre.”
Mrs Weller said no major changes were planned to the bar and cafe but that there would be “sharpening up of areas that need it”. She said she did not have exact figures for the cost of the work but said it would come from existing maintenance budgets.
Mrs Weller added: “Hopefully, people will appreciate this. Over the years, buildings like this do get run down and people would quite rightly become concerned if we didn’t do anything. More than 100,000 people a year visit Curve. That’s a lot of people, and having them come through naturally has an impact on the facilities. Toilets break, the flooring gets worn. We need to tart it up a bit.”
This season ends with the final performance of The Snow Queen on Saturday. The building will be used by three theatre companies for rehearsals during the closure.
An alternative box office will open at Highcross Leicester for people wanting to book tickets for the new season, which includes the Christmas production of The King and I.
A trustee of the Leicester Theatre Trust, which runs Curve, who did not want to be named, said: “The closure over the summer is not something we’ve done before and is very much a deliberate decision by the new chief executive. She suggested it and we agreed to it.
“There’s generally an acceptance that the theatres are excellent but the social spaces, like the bar and cafe, need to be improved.”
Source: Leicester Mercury
