Stand Spotlight: Bye bye to the Byre theatre

The Byre Theatre has existed for almost 80 years, becoming a limited company in 1969 with a Board of Directors. They’re all volunteers and all unpaid, including Frank Quinault, the Chairman of the Board.

Frank joined the Board at the end of 1999, and as such has seen it progress from a small country theatre to a successful performing space with its own modern building, built in 2001. It was built as a producing theatre, meant to produce its own shows in house, which it successfully did until 2011, when the Scottish Arts Council “suddenly said ‘we’re cutting the grant,’” said Quinault. “It had already been reduced to £160,000, and they cut it, just like that.”

Quinault cites this blow as being one of the primary factors in the Byre’s closing, saying “we said at the time that we didn’t really know how we could go on, but it didn’t make any difference. They did the same to a couple of other theatres in Scotland, which also had huge problems.”

The other main setback was the bankruptcy of Kingarroch at the Byre, the company to which the Byre franchised its catering service. “At first it went very well,” said Quinault, “and then they went bust, leaving considerable debts to the Byre. And that was one of the triggers.”

On January 22^nd, it became apparent that the theatre was quickly running out of cash. The Board of the theatre, led by Quinault, hired specialty accountants to assess the situation, but nothing could be done.

“People have said it was very sudden, but as I said there’d been a problem in the background for a long time,” said Quinault. “We knew there was an ongoing problem; we hoped that we could just get through. It was quite awful having to close the theatre.”

Though the #savethebyre campaign fought a good fight on Facebook, Twitter, and in person, staging large rallies outside of the theatre, there was no way the necessary sum of money could be raised.

One of the keenest protesters in attendance was our very own Freddie Fforde, Student’s Association President. Fforde said “the cultural value of A.B. Paterson’s contributions to St Andrews, as the original owner of the Byre Theatre, deserve to be long maintained and improved upon. It is the local culture of helping each other out that encourages such a productive community atmosphere here, and we are proud to offer our support to the Byre in its hour of need.”

“The public has been very heartening, as it’s been spontaneous,” said Quinault. “We didn’t engineer this, it’s just people, all sorts of people who love the Byre, and there’s been a fantastic amount of traffic which was very heartening, but it wasn’t going to save the Byre. The only thing that could’ve saved it was a big chunk of cash, and really that could only come from the Fife Council or Creative Scotland.”

This is not the end for the Byre Theatre, however. Quinault believes that it will end up being taken over by a new body, the Fife Cultural Trust. In recent years, this trust has been converting stadiums, libraries, archives, and museums into a trust run by the council, in order to save tax money required of non-charity businesses.

“I think the Byre will reopen, quite possibly in the near future, in autumn, probably under the Fife Trust,” said Quinault. This restructuring may not be a negative thing, as “some of the finances, HR, etc. could be done centrally through [The Fife Trust], and there could be sharing of sources of technical help, and it would probably make it easier to get back some money from Creative Scotland. I think that is what will happen.” Whether it will continue to be able to support student theatre, however, is anyone’s guess.

This directly affects Mermaids and its President, Cameron Kirby, in light of their upcoming “On The Rocks” festival, a St Andrews cultural staple every year. Kirby said “We’ve been lucky enough to put on 3/4 productions a semester there for the last few years, including recent production of Party, Baby Bottle Cosmo and Hair. The staff was always fantastic, and it’s a huge shame to see them lose the job their jobs.” He went on to note that “I’ve been working with the On The Rocks festival over the last two weeks to help ensure that all our OTR shows can go ahead despite the Byre’s closure. Mermaids are 100% behind the Save the Byre campaign and we’ll be doing whatever we can to support it.”

Quinault has been enthusiastically grateful for this public support since the beginning, asking every reader to “please keep the support going, so that when the byre reopens, you can come back in. Obviously we won’t have the same control we did when we had our own board, so only time will tell.”

Keep up with the #savethebyre campaign here, and watch The Stand for any news of the Byre’s reopening.

Image courtesy of caledonianmercury.com, flickr.com and architect.co.uk