Cumbernauld Theatre – Vital Local Theatre Earns A Reprive, But Is Not Saved Yet (Interview: Chief Executive, Patricia Stead)

At the beginning of 2025, Creative Scotland announced that 251 arts organisations were to be given secure funding over a three-year period, which was widely welcomed. It followed a period of uncertainty lasting several months as Creative Scotland delayed their announcement, which had been due in 2024, leaving many organisations in the Scottish arts scene worrying over whether they had a future, unable to plan. 

For 15 organisations the announcement came with the shock that they were being left out in the cold and for at least one of them, it meant facing closure. A campaign was launched at Cumbernauld Theatre to save it and in December 2025, days before they had to shut their doors, it was announced they had a reprieve as the Scottish Government announced a package of funding of £150,000 for 2026/27 with a possible £150,000 for the following year, which kept their stage curtains open.   

It was added to nearly £100,000 Cumbernauld Theatre Trust had been granted by the Creative Scotland Open Fund and the huge amount of donations and fundraising the theatre and community of Cumbernauld had done to keep the organisation going. We caught up with the Theatre Trust’s interim Chief Executive, Patricia Stead, to chat through the past, the present and the future. 

The campaign involved a lot of work, questions in parliament, engaging with the council, fundraising by the Theatre team and support from fellow artists.  Was there one thing that stood out which made the campaign so successful?

The love and outpouring of support locally, which has been extraordinary. To stand in the Antonine Centre [shopping mall in the town of Cumbernauld] and have people throw money in a box is very humbling. It’s just extraordinary. I have to give credit to Jamie Hepburn (local MSP) and the politicians. I think that Angus Robertson (Culture Secretary) also didn’t want it to fail, which might be timing with the election next year. We’ll take the win.

Was there one moment or one event that stood out and made you think, this could work? 

The Big Variety Bash night. We have a 274 seat theatre but I’m sure if we had 500 seats, we’d have sold 500 seats. I will never in my life forget the size of the raffle prize box. We took nearly £3,000 of raffle prize money at £5 a strip on the night. We were on the last act, still ripping tickets, folding them up and putting them in the box, which is why we couldn’t pull the ticket out on the night. We were right to the wire. Nobody expected that. 

You managed to entice Fred MacAulay to host, how did that come about?

I met Fred MacAulay a long time ago. I just messaged him via Facebook. I did say to him the only reason I’ve connected with you via Facebook is because, for some reason, you pop up on my Facebook selling Range Rovers! I asked, do you know anybody that would host this night? And he said, I’ll do it. That was a good sell! 

You have worked on the other side of the fence, managing funding decisions. What insights did that bring? 

I do see how complicated it is and how everybody thinks they have a right to funding from you. You have to have process. I think sometimes the problem is that process is all you have. You also need a bit of strategy. I do appreciate when you’re on that side, you can never do the right thing for everybody. You get vilified.

Your job is really hard because somewhere you’ll upset somebody and they have a go personally. Art and artists have got a bit lost in there somewhere.

It’s difficult to work anywhere where you’re making decisions on who gets funding because I go back to where the Scottish Arts Council didn’t really fund artists at all. They were created to fund organisations. It was the National Lottery that changed that, creating a way for artists and community projects to be funded. Coming out of university I don’t think you ever really thought, I’ll apply to the Scottish Arts Council because I’ll get money. It wasn’t there.

I work with a cultural forum in Glasgow and meet a lot of artists, particularly young artists. I know in Glasgow a lot of them feel scunnered because they apply for money and they don’t get it and their projects are good. Some of that is because they’re in Glasgow. A lot of stuff gets funded in Glasgow but there are more artists than in any other city in Scotland, therefore your chances of getting that funding will be fewer. 

What needs to change?

I think the arts bodies need space again, to think about what’s needed and how to support art. My criticism is that everybody in multi-year funding filled in the same form.

Everybody answered all those questions and put their heart and soul into answering. That means everybody was saying they could do stuff that they can’t. Then they only got 65, 75% of the money. But Creative Scotland didn’t go, ‘you don’t have to do that bit’. It’s tough. 

The final announcement was in mid-December, how close was it to pulling the curtain down for the last time?

On the Monday before we announced it on Friday, I was drafting a paper on redundancy contributions. But what it was going to be was, if we’re going to fail, we’re all going to fail. But equally, that Friday announcement could have been, I’m sorry, we haven’t managed to secure the money, and we have to make a decision because we can’t keep doing this. It’s been quite a rollercoaster ride all the way to the end.

In fractious times, it’s difficult. It’s difficult for people to carry on going not knowing if on Christmas they’ve got a job. It’s Cumbernauld. There isn’t another theatre up the road that’s going to advertise a front of house job.

Is it important to call it a reprieve? As things stand you have not been saved?

We should all know that this is a reprieve, we’re not saved. There is still a giant hole in the budget. The problem with things like projects is that they are projects. Even if a lump of that money is going to contribute towards salaries and work that we want to do anyway, I still have to raise the rest of the money for that project. Which is over and above the money I have to raise for the organization. It does put demands on you.  

That project (for which funding has been received from Creative Scotland’s Open Fund) from April, we have to be rolling with that. That’s got quite a lot of partners in it, bringing a lot of people together. It’s trying to get into new areas that we haven’t worked in before and taken our engagement out a bit. I got £99,557, but it’s community money. It will get spent out there. It’s not helping my bottom line. It’s not like they would fund me to do 10 extra tribute bands, but those 10 extra tribute bands would make us money. This won’t make us money. 

We have to make some money. We’re not going to put ticket prices up. We’re going to have, like most people are doing now, a £1 levy on every ticket and hope that people understand that that pound comes to us. That might mean some people don’t give us a donation, but people have already been so generous.

Is it difficult to plan for the future in this in-between state?

In this business, you can’t sit about and wait when people come at you. There are other theatres out there programmed into 2027. People are booking tours (and) we have continued to book, but saying to people, we don’t know where we’ll be. 

What would have happened to those bookings if the campaign had failed? 

One of my thoughts was, if we’re not here as Cumbernauld Theatre Trust, I haven’t even had the conversation, but in my head, we could convince the council to honour those contracts. I can’t pretend the council have been doing their sums on that. 

Were there any projects you couldn’t plan for?

The one thing we couldn’t do is book a panto for next year. We’ve had basic discussions, but after Alan, our chair announced to people that they had jobs, it hit me – the list of stuff. 

A long list?

I’ve got to get accounts submitted – you can’t get your accounts signed off if you don’t know you’ve got a future! I’m still trying to set a budget for next year. We all have to go and breathe for a couple of weeks, and then get on with the job, because we’re not saved. 

What’s top of that list?

To set a budget that the board will accept. We’ve got money to go into next year, but I also need to do a lot of fundraising. There’s a lot of bids to put in, which takes time. I need to set up a new fundraising campaign. The danger we’ve got now is people think we’ve been saved. We’ll have to apply somewhere for another £100,000 and then raise £50,000 again from local people. 

We need to find different ways for people to support us. It’s not always about shaking a bucket in their face. My big priority is raising enough money for next year, but then raise the money for the year after, which would be the year we’re applying to multi-year funding if Creative Scotland are doing that. The Scottish Government are not going to keep coming in. They can’t just keep funding us, because that’s what Creative Scotland does. Our only hope in future would be to get back into (the) Creative Scotland portfolio. We have two years to build the work, and to have a clear vision for the future.

One of the recent successes has been the panto, Baltic by a newly formed company, Ginger and Jester Productions, so there shall be one next year?

There will be a panto; but we haven’t negotiated it. It’s been hugely successful, it’s fantastic and people have come and loved it. I think it’s also benefited a bit from the massive campaign because I think there are now more people who know we exist than did. 

What does the future look like? 

We have to hold on to those audiences, grow audiences (and) get people to take more risks. We desperately need to grow our great little cinema. The difficulty in a place like this is you’re always faced with people saying, oh, but we can go to the Forge [a nearby local shopping mall] and it’s cheaper. Of course it is. They are not making money in those cinemas. They’re heavily subsidised, we can’t do that, we’re trying to stay reasonable. The future is about getting people to come here.

The best thing people can do for us is buy a ticket, come to a show and come back. It’s not just about the money, it’s very hard to have a campaign that says, ‘we need to be here’ if we’ve got 40 people in a 270-capacity theatre. You have to get demand and show demand to increase the possibility of investment. We need a bit of support out there in the community to tell people we’re here. It’s about spreading the word and taking the chance and coming. 

And for Cumbernauld Theatre Trust? 

It’s about connecting more with the community of Cumbernauld. We felt the love. Now we have to hang on to that love. We want to programme what people want. People have to tell us what they want and then we also have to programme the bits that people don’t know they want.

We’ve got Scottish Dance Theatre coming in the autumn, an amazing company. The show they’re bringing in is for families, and we’re doing it twice. I really want to sell that, because people only ever really know Scottish Ballet. I’d like to do a little bit more dance and try and develop that audience, but it’s a hard sell. People have to take a risk.

So, pointing the way forward is important, but you also have one other request?

If people campaigned for us to get a sign. There is no sign outside the theatre and people don’t know we are here! If they did, they would realise they have the best arts centre in the country for parking. (And the best view of a roundabout!)

Cumbernauld Theatre Trust begins 2026 looking forward to being central to celebrating the 70th anniversary of Cumbernauld becoming a New Town. They still have a huge task to  fill the gap in the budget that keeps the lights on to celebrate a landmark theatre, in its new building, overlooking a car park – a concrete garden which befits the town it seeks to represent. By the look of things, both the town and the theatre have rediscovered affection for each other as the theatre has gratitude for its rallying to their cause. 

Find out what Cumbernauld Theatre have planned for 2026

Main photo credit: Kirk Lothian