Your OTG Community

So it looks like lockdown is coming, and with it a new wave of uncertainty and insecurity. It's been a heartbreaking sight, this last week, as many of our friends and colleagues have had to find alternative means of income for the foreseeable future, or indeed have already found themselves falling on hard times. It's a difficult time to be self-employed, to be an artist, a musician, a theatre-maker, an NHS worker, on a zero-hours contract, elderly, suffering from underlying health conditions, a teacher, or just scared. It's times like these when we see the absolute best and worst of people and figure out what we are all really all about.

As a commercial theatre company we rely on the good will and community spirit of the people around us. We are incredibly fortunate to have built audiences across the North west of England, Wales, and across both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. You are the people we rely on to keep coming to our shows, attending our youth theatre sessions, booking us for workshops, etc. You're the ones that keep us fed and clothed, and with that in mind, we'd like to give something back in these uncertain times.

So, from today until such a time that we are all allowed to go back to the theatre (or the pub, preferably) and there ceases to be a need for it, we are opening up our OTG family to you all. If you or anyone around you need help, with anything at all, no matter how big or small, then consider us as an option.

It might be that you can't get to the shops, or do so in fear of contracting the virus because of elderly relatives or family in high-risk groups. Perhaps you've been to 15 different shops already today but you can't find bread anywhere. It may be that you are at home alone, struggling with isolation and the strains it puts on mental wellbeing. Perhaps you've found your sources of income drying up, and are looking for alternatives or where there may be money available. It might be that you find yourself with no work left to do from home one idle Wednesday afternoon, and just fancy a chat with people who can regale you with stories from the theatre world.

Let us help.

Give us a call, send us a message and have us call you. You can get us on our website, email, phone numbers from the contact page, or any social media channel you find us on. If there's anything that we can do directly to help, we will, and if there's nothing we can do, we'll help you find the people that can.

It's important that we all stick together in times like this. We know everybody has been saying it over and over again, but it only holds true if we stand up and act upon it.

Artists and free thinkers, if you are under the illusion that self-isolation is the worst thing that can happen to your creative spirit, remember that Isaac Newton, sent home from Cambridge University to self-isolate in the midst of the bubonic plague, spent this time theorising on gravity and discovering the make up of light in what we now know to be the most productive period of his life.

Get in touch.