A Whitehaven theatre has welcomed the Government’s new package of support for the arts, as it prepares to put in place innovative ways of reaching audiences in spite of the coronavirus outbreak.

The Rosehill Theatre in Moresby, Whitehaven is hard at work exploring how best to connect with its audience in the weeks and months to come, while coronavirus restrictions still prevent it from opening as normal.

Like many other theatres, arts and cultural venue directors across the country, Rosehill’s directors welcomed this week’s Government announcement pledging £1.57bn in support for the arts, entertainments and cultural sector.

“It will have to cover a lot of ground, but however you look at it, it’s a huge sum of money,” Mr Elder said.

He added that the scale of the funding support was particularly welcome given the sheer enormity of the economic issues facing the country right now.

“The Government will have a lot of decisions to make when faced with so many people in need, that it can only be looked at as a very significant amount of money indeed,” he said.

“How it’s going to impact on us will depend on how it’s going to be filtered through schemes and applications.”

One aspect of the venue, its Green Room restaurant, is on the verge of reopening, providing a click and collect service.

But as for the theatre itself, Mr Elder said they are keenly exploring ways in which it can reach audiences while theatres must stay that way.

“We’re looking at different ways in which we can produce work, such as holding concerts in the auditorium with the audience at a distance, when that’s allowed,” he said.

“And of course we could record it, to make it available to people in their homes.”

Mr Elder added that the Rosehill Theatre is keen to view the current disruption as an opportunity to connect with new audiences.

“We want to explore how we could reach out to different audiences as well, perhaps in schools, hospitals or care homes,” he said, adding that digital technology made connecting new audiences more possible than ever.

“By exploring things like that we can explore ways in which we can reach new people and grow our audience.

“No one wants to be in this situation, but it does present an opportunity to access new audiences.”

One intriguing possibility, Mr Elder said, is the theatre is exploring is performances in the theatre’s car park, relying on car radios to deliver sounds directly to their audience.

“People can sit in their cars, and tune into a specific FM frequency on their radio and listen to the performance that’s happening in the car park,” he explained.

Also an exciting prospect is the theatre’s desire to field the experiences of west Cumbrian communities throughout the coronavirus pandemic, with a view towards adapting that into a “story-telling project”.

Mr Elder stressed it was important to the theatre that when fully reopening became possible, it was certain that audiences would feel safe.

“Until then, we’re hoping to find ways in which people can access our work at home,” he said.

Mr Elder added that he hoped the innovations the theatre explores in the period to come, will valuable enough to form part of Rosehill’s identity going forward.

“We want to do work that wouldn’t just be a stopgap, but would continue beyond this period,” he said.