On June 24 2016 the news that a majority had voted to leave the European Union shook the UK arts establishment. Rufus Norris, artistic director of the Royal National Theatre (NT), described it as a 'wake-up call' that revealed profound anti-London sentiments and a fragmented society. Described by Pippa Norris as a 'cultural backlash' (2019), the Brexit vote prompted a period of reflection in the arts community, leading major city-based theatres to reassess their relationship with neighbouring towns and build new programmes to extend their local and national reach. In April 2019 Arts Council England (ACE) called for 'relevance' as well high quality in their future strategy, with the intention to engage a public that, according to ACE's deputy chief executive Simon Mellor, 'has lost all confidence in what they view as an out-of-touch establishment'. One response has been to re-examine the civic role of the arts, described by The Gulbenkian Foundation as 'the sociopolitical impact that organisations make on a place and its people through programmes of activity' (2016). Theatre depends on the live event, bringing people together to share experience, and is particularly well-placed to open pressing questions about new forms of civic equality. This research is timely, but it also looks beyond the current moment to ask deeper questions about the ideal of an inclusive civic theatre today. The theatre has long been a place for citizens to debate, to meet and learn, and, historically, the ideal of a civic theatre has resurfaced in times of instability and social reform. Civic theatres represented civic pride in Victorian England and newly-built theatres were symbols of hope in the era of post-war reconstruction. Yet traditional ideas of the civic dropped out of favour with arts organisations and cultural policy-makers in the second half of the twentieth century, not least because they carried associations with the arts as 'civilising' that were inherently hierarchical. The ideal of community replaced the notion of civil society, leading publicly funded theatres to establish community programmes that encourage participation. This research will draw on the past to inform the present, and with our Project Partners and Collaborating Organisation, analyse how barriers to creating an inclusive theatre today might be overcome. This research aims to prompt a national conversation about the civic role of theatre in the twenty-first century. Despite considerable research on theatre in cities, there has been no systematic research on theatres in towns. Towns receive considerably less public subsidy for the arts than cities, and townspeople have fewer opportunities to contribute to the creative economy, despite often supporting a thriving amateur theatre scene. This risks leaving people living in towns feeling disenfranchised and excluded, perpetuating the perception that cities are edgy and forward-looking whereas towns are conservative backwaters. To redress this balance, the research brings together amateur, professional and community theatres from different types of towns (e.g. seaside, market, post-industrial and new towns). It will examine the programmes of two major city-based producing house theatres that take place in towns and with diverse communities, the NT's Public Acts and Manchester Royal Exchange's Local Exchange programme. The research seeks to understand how barriers to participating in theatre might be removed, how diverse voices might be better represented, and how a practical approach to civic engagement in theatre might transcend entrenched social, cultural and economic divisions as well as open fresh ways of thinking about institutional cultures across the theatre sector.

The UK's arts & cultural sector is thriving: it contributes 674,000 jobs and £11.8bn per annum to the economy and remains one of its fastest growing sectors (DCMS, 2018). Yet despite this strong economic performance and its world-leading reputation for quality, the sector consistently fails to comprehend, capture and convey its values in a compelling way. This is partly because it suffers from structural problems including a lack of diversity, skills gaps (especially in data analysis & digital engagement), poor research & evaluation skills, and significant under-investment in training and R&D. These issues hinder its innovation and resilience and compromise its ability to make a coherent and compelling case for investment to key stakeholders, including private donors, corporate sponsors and HM Treasury, and to cognate sectors such as health & education. So we will dedicate resources to training/developing sector practitioners and students (FE/HE/PGR) in key areas of need including data analysis, audience/participant research, research-driven evaluation and storytelling. This proposal has been conceived by a genuinely national consortium comprising world-leading universities & sector partners. These partnerships will enable the Centre to quickly tap into existing networks and gain ready access to different types & sizes of arts/cultural organisations from all over the UK. The Centre will be delivered in a collaborative way that draws on the complementary expertise of its core & affiliate members and harnesses this in a strategic way to maximise the potential of its activities. Based partly on the findings of the Cultural Value Project, the Centre's priority themes will comprise: diversity & inequality, public impact, health & wellbeing, place-making, culture-led regeneration, civic engagement, cultural democracy, co-creation & participation. These themes will be prioritized in our calls for £200k seed funding and reflected in our events. The aim of the events is to stimulate fresh thinking on key themes related to cultural value & engagement and communicate this beyond the sector. The Centre will deliver the following 20 knowledge exchange events over 5 years: 1. Scoping Event 1 (Creative workshop, Opera North/DARE, Leeds) 2. Scoping Event 2 (Open Space event, British Library, London) 3. Launch (Leeds Town Hall) 4. Arts impact evaluation (Creative workshop, U. of Liverpool) 5. Cultural & economic value (Symposium, Cardiff University) 6. Arts, wellbeing & health policy (Colloquium, U. of Leeds) 7. Cultures of participation & co-production (Creative workshop, QMU, Edinburgh) 8. Diversity Forum (Coventry 2021) 9. Audience research & empirical aesthetics (Participatory Action Research event, UCL) 10. Cultures of fandom (Symposium, U. of Bristol) 11. Creative industries, innovation & the creative economy (Symposium, U. of York) 12. Place-making, culture-led regeneration & evaluation (Symposium, U. of Hull) 13. Barriers to cultural engagement (Open Space event, U. of Sheffield) 14. Arts & education policy (Creative workshop, National Theatre/British Library, London) 15. Processes of cultural value (Creative workshop, Eden Court/U. of Highlands & Islands, Inverness) 16. Cultural taste & class (Symposium, U. of Warwick) 17. Arts and conflict resolution (Symposium, Queens University Belfast) 18. Festival & storytelling symposium (Opera North/Leeds 2023, Leeds) 19. Conference on Cultural Value and Engagement (UoL) 20. Evaluation & legacy planning roundtable (UoL) These events will be supported by our website, which will encourage and facilitate engagement & debate between and beyond the events. Outcomes will be captured via regular research digests & blogs. In order to remain open to stakeholders' input and responsive to emerging issues, the Centre will earmark additional funding to support & partner fringe events that arise during the scoping events and over the lifecycle of the Centre.

As the first major study of local theatres, this ambitious interdisciplinary research takes place when localism has re-entered the political lexicon. In England, the location of this research, place-based cultural policies have responded to successive government initiatives to increase local decision-making, address regional inequalities, boost local enterprise, and revitalise town centres. Living locally is also an environmental ideal, and generates powerful feelings of belonging. But local cultures can also be inhospitable, exclusionary, and inward-looking; populist politicians invoke an imaginary of local life to stir social division, and far-right groups turn to racialised ideas of 'locals' to fuel hate crime. Theatres are widely regarded as beacons of hope, equity, and civic pride, but sustained engagement with local people is largely hidden from view, found in youth theatres, participatory programmes, and amateur companies. Although theatres appeared dark during the Covid-19 pandemic, participatory programmes, youth, and amateur theatres continued to provide emotional support, mutual aid, and creative activities locally and online. Lockdowns both strengthened hyperlocal relationships and highlighted translocal and global connectivity. Post-pandemic, despite an urgent need to heal social fragmentation, theatres found themselves navigating conflicting local agendas and competing for scant resources. In this context, participatory programmes with local people - where theatre is most socially inclusive - have become vulnerable. The political complexities of localism are situated at the forefront of our research. London's theatres face disinvestment, with consequences for young theatre-makers reluctant to leave their postcodes for fear of gang violence. Outside major cities, theatres struggle to retain local talent as theatre-makers seek creative opportunities elsewhere. Residents who don't self-identify as 'locals' sometimes exclude themselves from participatory programmes; some local people feel unwelcome in gentrified cultural quarters, or associate 'civic' theatres with authority rather than creativity. Many local cultural assets - libraries, radio, newspapers, museums, green spaces, landmark buildings, community centres - are under-used, under-funded, and under-threat. Amateur companies have deep local roots but are often slow to make changes that would diversify their demographic. Yet theatres play an important role as storytellers, inviting audiences to engage with the many landscapes, dialects, memories, histories, and journeys that shape local life. This research aims to transform understanding of theatre-making as local, hyperlocal, and translocal practices. Our objectives are to: Increase understanding of theatres as local cultural and community assets by engaging a wide range of stakeholders. Strengthen inclusive approaches to theatre-making, producing, and programming across amateur, professional, and youth contexts. Support local talent by identifying creative opportunities and skills development, enabling career progression for theatre-makers in their home towns and cities. Inspire theatre-makers to re-imagine what 'local' means in the past, present, and future by co-creating theatre that explores historical injustices and hidden exclusions. Understand the impact of increased localised decision-making on theatres. Build long-term capacity by supporting new voices in theatre and the academy. Our approaches to knowledge-generation are designed to benefit theatre-makers as artists and theatres as organisations. Our findings will inform policy agendas by clarifying the cultural politics of localism, and evidence the value of sustainable local theatres.