Annual Report for 2023
In accordance with our Constitution and our obligations as a CIO, Heroica Theatre Company’s Trustees met at four Board meetings and an AGM across 2023, and accurate Minutes were kept. Accounts and reports will be submitted to The Charity Commission in October 2024.
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In 2023, at the AGM in October, Alison Leonard stood down as Trustee, and we thanked her for her years of service, guidance and enthusiastic support for Heroica and all its ventures.
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Heroica Theatre Company reported an active and productive year in 2023 despite, and also because of, the discontinuation of the successful Maverick Monologues series (2019-2022).
2.1 This we did in response to feedback – or lack of it – from our database of followers whom we canvassed in relation to the programme’s potential continuation. We asked whether they would be interested in us reviving the model locally (live events) and/or scheduling further Zoom events; and whether they would be willing to be a presenter or a listener. Despite receiving only about 28 responses, and while there was an 99.9% support for the idea of reviving Maverick Monologues, only two people were prepared to be presenters rather than listeners. We took this as a signpost to move on for now.
3. The Pat Douthwaite project:
3.1 Following the feeling expressed at the previous meeting of Heroica trustees - that Heroica should endeavour to return to a concentration on work written by Anna Carlisle and performed by Alexandra Mathie - we resolved to make a piece of work for performance concerning the life and work of Pat Douthwaite, Scottish painter (1934 – 2002).
The production would be intended for performance in late 2024.
This idea took firm hold over some months as a result of various incentives: initially a suggestion from the Scottish Gallery; then a connection we discovered between Margaret Morris and Pat Douthwaite; AC wrote and presented a ‘Maverick Monologue’ presentation on PD; AC had attended a seminar on Pat Douthwaite at the National Galleries Scotland given by Prof Susannah Thompson; and thereafter a ‘go-ahead’ from Grainne Rice of NGS that we devise a theatre piece for staging in 2024 at The Hawthornden Lecture Theatre (as per Joan Eardley: A Private View 2017).
Following much consideration and advice, we proposed a one-person show about Pat Douthwaite supported by live-performed music and projected reproductions of paintings produced by Heroica which could be performed in a variety of possible spaces and ‘portable’ enough to be repeated in different venues at any time, i.e. available for future performances on demand rather than limited solely to an initial, fixed touring period.
Mid-2023 AM and AC met and talked with as many people as practicable who had known Pat Douthwaite: Matilda Mitchell, wife of the late Douglas Hall of the SNGMA who supported PD and was the first to purchase one of her works for the Gallery; Richard Demarco of the Traverse/Edinburgh Festival artists’ archive, who was the first person to exhibit PD’s works and to
support her rise through the Scottish art world; and Guy Peploe who joined The Scottish Gallery at the time PD negotiated with them a wholesale sale of all her works.
Pat Douthwaite certainly fits our ‘maverick’ category and has been very much undersung, especially in her own lifetime. She started out trying to pursue a life as a dancer/ performer, studying with Margaret Morris and JD Fergusson. It was JDF’s praise for her painting that gave her the momentum and courage to begin serious work as an artist with no training. A unique individual and an extraordinary and prolific painter, she became happy to be known as the ‘High Priestess of the Grotesque’. Her representations of the female form in particular may be said to be brutal but there is a screaming honesty to them and the canvases certainly shout their truths loudly from their mountings.
Her work is currently coming into vogue – as she herself predicted, only once she was dead - and sales of her work are appearing more and more in the auction houses.
3.2 We decided early not to seek grants from ACE or Creative Scotland for this project. We would ask the board to consider using HTC funds to support us in the development of the work. This could be claims made by AC and AM for travel/accommodation/appropriate expenses up to an agreed ceiling or could be a lump sum ‘commission’ for furthering the project. (A fund of £500 was agreed by the Board at the June 2023 meeting.)
AM devised a loose budget for the entire project of £5000. It was discussed that, as producer, Heroica would pay for the making of the project and then recoup via charges to venues for performances in whatever way was most suitable (either single fee or box office split). Detailed costings would be entered in the budget as the project developed across 2024 and essential requirements became more evident.) We aimed to have two fund-raising events achieved by mid2024.
We created a Pat Douthwaite page on the Heroica website, outlining plans and recent developments, and located some guide information to it on the HOME page.
3.3 By the end of 2023 we had in place:
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A draft script for the piece: Pat Douthwaite: Alive and Kicking
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NGS agreement secured: one performance Sept or Oct 2024 (tba) at The Hawthornden Lecture Theatre - which can hold up to 200, tickets £15 ea. A budget was devised, discussed and agreed in principle with Grainne Rice of NGS: charging NGS £1000 plus a 50/50 split of the box office.
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Further performance venue suggestions to be followed up in early 2024: Glasgow Women’s Library; the Lillie Gallery in Milngavie; the Paisley Museum; and Lyon & Turnbull, Edinburgh (to coincide with their Contemporary art fair). It was also agreed that performances would also be premiered in Hebden Bridge Town Hall.
Thus all Heroica work in 2023 was devoted to the development of this project, secure in the implicit support and guidance we were receiving from Heroica trustees and from the various potential partners in and supporters of the project.
Angela Cairns, October 2024
Heroica Theatre Company
Total Receipts & Payments Account for the year ended 31-12-23
| Receipts Fundraising Income Donations Grants HMRC - Gift Aid Interest Sales Easy Fundraising Paypal Box Office Receipt - spare 10 |
Unrestricted Restricted Total - - - 628.91 - 628.91 - - - 65.25 - 65.25 7.30 - 7.30 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 701.46 - 701.46 - - - 337.12 - 337.12 - - - 134.07 - 134.07 - - - 113.77 - 113.77 150.02 - 150.02 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 734.98 - 734.98 (33.52) - (33.52) - - - 2,759.60 - 2,759.60 2,726.08 - 2,726.08 1,790.78 836.89 51.16 47.25 2,726.08 0.00 |
Previousyear |
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| Total receipts Payments Room Hire IT - Domain and Hosting Miscellaneous Insurance Marketing HTC Office Project Appraisal Consultancy Marketing WCAS Fee Salaries Fees Rehearsal Sets and Props Costume Equipment and Hire Venue Management Licensing Transport Education Venue Hire Hospitality Subs Conference Expenses Payment - spare 25 |
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| Total payments | - | |
| Net receipts / (payments) Transfer Balance brought forward |
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| Balance carried forward Made up of: Lloyds TSB Current Account Lloyds Deposit account Cash float Checks - this should equal zero |
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Approval of the accounts
The financial statements were approved at a meeting of the management committee and signed on its behalf by:
Signed: … ……………………………
Name Amanda Dalton (Chair)……………………………………… (Management Committee member) Date: ……7 October 2024…………………………………