Page 34 - The Palace @ 100

Into The Eighties

Seats in the stalls were now stackable, allowing for
many uses of the floor area. Other additions included
moving the dressing rooms from the front of the
Pearl Taylor
building to the side taking over what had been part of
Remembers.....
Shrimpton’s Needle Factory and adding foyer
extensions. Administration offices were created
“When the decision was
where the dressing rooms had previously been. In
taken to knock down the
1975 a Buy a Seat Campaign was launched and the
theatre and build a stalls were fitted out with new seats. In 1979 a new
leisure centre, the scene dock and workshop was added to the building.
members of the local
Amateur Societies
decided to get up a In 1982 a private theatre group took it over under the
petition against the title of the Mercian Theatre and Arts Federation, but
closure. The town’s a report in the Indicator and Chronicle in April
people got behind us - summed it up after only 60 people turned up to see a
and we won, didn’t we!’ concert. Just five of them were from Redditch. "The
fate of the Redditch Palace is in the hands of the
audience.
‘The theatre was handed
to the user societies to
run, with the financial
backing of business
people in the town. I
became cleaning co-
ordinator and key
holder, grouping
together the members of
amateur societies on
Sunday mornings to
clean the theatre from
top to bottom.’

‘A group of volunteers
became the permanent
stage crew for ten years,
headed by Trevor A rare view backstage of the ‘Green Room’ prior
Farmer as Stage to the 2005 refurbishment.
Manager, we worked 52
weeks of the year on The Redditch Borough Council took over the
management and running of the building in 1985 and
every show, just for the
continued a tradition of providing a wide mix of
love of the Palace
entertainment to please every palate.
Theatre”

1980s
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