Creative Scotland doubles multi-year funded organisations
Stability assured and extra funds awarded for many companies
Summerhall Arts, Pianodrome and Tortoise in a Nutshell are among 43 Edinburgh-based companies to join those receiving three-year funding awards from Creative Scotland to cover core costs and programmes of work.
Multi-year funding (previously called regular funding) allows the companies to make stable, year-on year planning, rather than scrabbling around for new money for every project or writing more funding applications every year.
Here are the Edinburgh-based theatre companies and theatre-adjacent companies which will receive multi-year funding from April 2025 to March 2028. Figures quoted are generally for funding over three years. This includes a confirmed amount for the first year, with anticipated awards for the second and third years.
In its much anticipated and delayed awards round, the first full such round since 2018, Creative Scotland has made awards of more than £200m, to 251 organisations over the next three years. Across Scotland, 141 of those organisations are new to multi-year funding. All the returning awardees will receive uplifts according to CS.
Edinburgh and East Lothian companies will receive a total of £74.52m over three years, of which the largest individual portion, £11.75m, will go to the Edinburgh International Festival. The EIF received £7m over three years in 2018, a level of core funding that had not increased since 2008.
The Lyceum will receive almost £5m over the three years, a significant increase from the £1.21m for the current year up to March. Mike Griffiths, executive director of the theatre, told Æ that while he is busy working on budgets for the coming years, he is “pleased” at the outcome.
Capital Theatres is to receive multi-year funding for the first time since 2018 when it “very reluctantly” agreed to stop being a regularly funded organisation, having achieved a “resilient business model”. It will now get £1.6m over three years.
The third theatre-based organisation in Edinburgh to get over a million is the Children’s Theatre festival Imaginate, which will get £1.52m over three years, a significant increase from the £1.1m it received in the 2018 round.
Absent
Two significant organisations are absent from the list for different reasons, but have the opportunity to join multi-year funding in its second year.
The Traverse has been dropped, having received £2.6m in 2018. It is now part of a “development stream”, getting £3.7m over three years, one of 13 organisations which Robert Wilson, Chair of Creative Scotland, says will get: “significant amounts of development funding, to enable them to come into the portfolio in its second year.”
Hidden Door, the organisation which opens up unused spaces for performance and which had not previously received regular funding, is also in the development stream and will get £363,126 over three years, subject to agreements.
Newcomers
Six Edinburgh/East Lothian-based theatre companies will be getting multi-year funding for the first time.
Framework Theatre, which supports emerging and early-career theatre makers will get £216,200, Dirliebane Theatre Company, creator of clown theatre performances for children, young people and their families will get £224,150 and Civic Digits which blends digital technology, gaming and live performance to question what it means to be a digital citizen will get £470,000.
Cutting Edge, which aims to increase the diversity of people accessing the creative industries in Scotland, will get £484,039; visual theatre company Tortoise in a Nutshell will get £514,650 and Art27 which takes its mission from Article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that everyone has the right to freely participate in the culture of their community, will get £591,840.
Continuing recipients
Four Edinburgh/Lothians theatre companies that are existing recipients of multi-year funding will continue in the programme.
Lung Ha, the theatre company for actors and theatre makers with a learning disability and autism, will get £572,591 and Magnetic North, which combines developing and producing live theatre with innovative multi-artform artist development will get £658,547.
New writing company and site-specific, location theatre specialists Grid Iron will get £875,160 and children’s theatre specialists Catherine Wheels will get £883,247.
Two further theatre support organisations will continue to get funding. Youth Theatre Arts Scotland will get £642,033 and the Federation of Scottish Theatre will get £960,000.
multi-disciplinary
There are 22 “multi-disciplinary” organisations to gain funding. Those with a particular theatre or performance interest include newcomers Think Circus (£150,000), Pianodrome (£177,500), WHALE arts (£262,355), North Edinburgh Arts (£309,731), Brunton Theatre Trust (£470,000), All or Nothing Aerial Dance Theatre (£587,500) and Luminate (£598,223).
Also included are Deaf Action (£600,486), Summerhall Arts (£608,302), Independent Arts Projects Ltd, (£720,223), Manipulate Arts (Puppet Animation Scotland) (£757,267), Lyra (£758,400), Starcatchers (£888,451) and Arika (£911,950).
The Loud Poets organisation, I Am Loud, will also get multi-year funding for the first time – with a total of £419,943 over three years.
In the dance world, Theiya Arts, which aims to “foster a vibrant, inclusive arts community that thrives on diversity and representation, making South Asian Arts an integral part of the Scottish dance ecosystem” gets funding for the first time (£366,600).
Curious Seed, formed in 2005 by Scottish choreographer, Christine Devaney, will continue to be funded, getting £602,793. And Scotland’s national centre for dance, Dance Base, will receive £1.72m.
ENDS