The Electric Theatre

 

Visit The Electric Theatre’s Website here

 

For those of you who don't already know, The Electric Theatre is a small community arts venue in the heart of Guildford (England) established in 1997. Its existence is owed to several years campaigning by local arts groups looking for a permanent home from home. This culminated in the conversion of a former Electricity Works into a state of the art studio theatre.

 

The theatre opened in January 1997 and up until June 2017 was owned, funded and managed by Guildford Borough Council. In 2015 GBC announced it was going to lease the theatre. After a lengthy campaign by GATA and other local groups and a successful online petition (over 3,000 signatures) to keep the theatre available to the community and for the community, a consultation was held by GBC who asked the genral publics views. An overwhelming majority (over 90%) said it should be kept for community use. With such a clear message the local council set in place  a lease that would ensure an element of community use would continue at the theatre.  After a long biding process GBC announced in December 2016 that the Academy of Contemporary Music (ACM) had successfully won the bid for the lease and management of the Electric Theatre.  

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GATA are now working with ACM to build a venue that is both used and visited by the community and offers a wide affordable variety of arts and entertainment.

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The theatre has won universal praise, both for the artistic endeavours of those on stage and for the theatre itself which won the 1998 Surrey Historic Building Trust Award for the best restoration of an existing building. The theatre has the support of many distinguished alumni of Guildford's amateur theatre companies and we look forward to seeing many more fledging stars on stage in the future. From stand up comedy to the classics, from folk to film, The Electric Theatre offers a packed programme of entertainment.