The Rotunda: A new pop up venue for Buxton Festival Fringe 2017

Buxton Festival Fringe 2017 will see the launch of the The Rotunda Theatre.  This brand new 120 seat studio theatre, housed in an eye catching blue geodesic dome, will pitch up at the Pavilion Gardens for the whole of the festival.  It will boast an exciting and diverse program that will include everything from a South African musical to some of the best solo theatre and a rare chance to see a film about working with the playwright Harold Pinter.

The Rotunda is the brainchild of Grist To The Mill and Red Dragonfly Productions whose extensive touring has identified the need for a medium sized pop up theatre.  'With the cuts in arts funding we are losing a number of small and medium sized venues countrywide,' says Ross Ericson, artistic director of Grist to the Mill, 'and those that are surviving are quite understandably being used more and more for lucrative youth theatre and outreach projects, which attract substantial Arts Council Funding.  It is therefore getting difficult for companies like ours to find sensible dates and put together a practical tour.  The Rotunda is not seeking to put itself in competition with these venues but work alongside them, by augmenting their existing spaces and making it easier for them to book touring productions without compromising their ongoing projects.' 

Grist To The Mill is currently touring its sell-out hit The Unknown Soldier and this will be part of the Buxton Program along with new projects Gratiano and The Empress and Me.  Red Dragonfly will be showcasing their recent new writing competition winners Hema and Anjali and Ketchup and another new piece Breaking Good.  Other notable shows are Alison Skillbecks's Mrs Roosevelt Flies To London, I Found My Horn starring Jonathan Guy Lewis, Call Mr Robeson, Blunderbus Theatre's Dogs Don't Do Ballet and Dead Ringer's James Hurn in a one man Hancock’s Half Hour

Tickets and information are available online at www.rotundatheatre.com or by phone on 07487 228993.