This December, Stiltskin are all set to celebrate 10 years of founding the Soapbox Children's Theatre in Plymouth. Here, we create magical theatre shows and events for children, young people, and their families. To celebrate our birthday and ensure we had the capacity to house our audiences this festive season, we purchased our Big Top with support from the Rank Foundation.
We were so excited to offer a beautiful festive experience, with newly written shows, handcrafted puppets, larger casts for the older shows, raked seating, a huge stage, a magical walk-through experience, as well as our delicious cakes and bijou toy and gift shop.
It was, therefore, with great sadness that on Saturday, we watched as the wind, blowing at at least 85 - 90 mph from Storm Darragh, ripped the Big Top apart.
There was nothing we could do. We did not have time to remove the infrastructure that had taken two weeks to build and lower the canvas. The Big Top did withhold, but a small rip grew, and eventually, the roof was torn off.
We are devastated. Not only have we lost our lovely Big Top, but we also cannot fulfil our full offer for our audiences. We have become a traditional venue for family audiences over the festive season, offering two shows for different age groups. Some of the children have grown up with us over the past ten years!
We can salvage The Elf Who Lost Christmas, a show for our younger audiences, which we can put into the theatre... we are currently building a new auditorium as we speak... but our older show has had to be cancelled. This is due to it having a much larger company — including our youth theatre companies Phoenix and Dream Catchers — and physical performing with tumbling, giant puppets, and so much more. (We do, however, hope to bring this great show back in the summer with a re-write to fit the season.)
As a Community Interest Company, any profit we would have made would have gone back into the work we produce, creating even more magic beyond the festive season for our audiences.
We now find ourselves approximately £30,000 down. This includes the purchase of the Big Top, ticket sales, and profit from the sales within our shop and café.
We would like to thank our team, who have put so much work into building the auditorium and stage, creating the extra experiences we would have put on, making a show that deserves to be seen, and communicating to our audiences so that they can have as good an experience as we can offer.
If you can support us in any way, even a £1 donation adds up, then maybe we can buy another Big Top. If we don't raise enough for that, then any donations will be put back into making the magic happen.
We would like to thank the team of volunteers who helped us on the 8th to completely clear the site, and all of the well wishes we have received. Our community is so supportive, and we could not do any of this without you.
We thank you in advance,
Jacqueline, Iain, and the Stiltskin team.