Help Us get to two mega opportunities - be part of National Theatre Connections and in Dreamcoat Stars at the Troubadour Theatre.
by The Boury Academy in London, Greater London, United Kingdom
We need more support as a community arts organisation as we settle in to our new home and find our feet with huge increased costs across the board. All extra money raised will go straight into running programmes for our young people and local community. As a Social Enterprise you know that everything donated is going straight into the organisation and will directly benefit our community as well as increasing opportunities for all young people we work with.
Who Are We?
Our Mission is to increase diversity in the performing arts world through access to professional training. We are a 'Non Profit' Social Enterprise based in Lambeth. We have been operating for five years now and have worked with more than 4,000 young people in that time. In September 2022 we launched The Boury Academy Studios -a home for our classes and a safe place for our young people.
Who Do We Work With?
We try to focus on those who would not have access to professional training and are particularity focused on those from the estates in and around Vauxhall / Stockwell/ Kennington and Oval. We work with children and young people age 4-24 as well as their parents and care givers and local schools.
Why Are We Fundraising?
As mentioned, our mission is to diversify the performing arts world. However, with the cost of living crisis, rising costs, increased wages for freelancers as we try to support through the cost of living crisis, our new home coming with a huge new rent and grant funding being harder and harder to come by...
We have been presented with two Amazing Opportunities for our students that will help us to DIRECTLY achieve that mission but...We Need Your Help
1. National Theatre Connections
The Boury Academy Young Company (performers ages 16-21) have the chance to appear as part of NT Connections. We get to choose from a list of new plays, produce and present it at The Boury Studios, then TRANSFER it to The Southwark Playhouse!!! The NT team will watch one performance and they will choose one version of each of the Connections Plays to even transfer to The National Theatre itself. We have already been accepted onto this years programme and The NT have waived half of the fee to participate for us as they recognise the challenges we face compared to more traditional theatre companies and schools, but we need more support to make this happen...
2. Dreamcoat Stars at The Troubadour Theatre Wembley Park
The amazing production team behind the UK Tour of Dreamcoat Stars hired our studios to rehearse in earlier this year. Seeing the value in what we do they decided not only to support us through rental hire, but also to offer 30 of our students the chance to perform alongside them as the choir at the 2,000 seater Troubadour Theatre in Wembley this October. This is a HUGE opportunity, not only for the students involved, not only for us to be on mission by getting some amazing diversity on to a huge stage, but also for us as an organisation to raise our profile. However it comes with additional costs that we did not anticipate so again... we need your help.
Both of these opportunities come with overheads for us such as
Both of these projects need to be able to run alongside our existing programmes to ensure no students are missing out. We have worked hard for five years to get to a position where these opportunities would even be possible - we really don't to fall at the last hurdle.
I want to help more! What can I do?
You could support a young persons time with us entirely! We have scholarships and support given out for all kinds of classes. From paying for a full year of training (just £540) to one term (£180) to one week of classes for just £15.
Our stretch target will also give us some much much needed core funding to see us through this huge transformational period in our new home. We need some core funding for programmes to allow us some space to really embed ourselves in the community and in the industry without having to worry about cash flow month to month
Why Should We Help?
We want to remove all barriers to training and opportunities for young people.
We are adamant that we will not make more barriers by passing costs onto families nor do we want any opportunity available to be out of reach for those we work with.
You will see from above that our costs are significantly lower than many other equivalent stage school opportunities out there today. For the price of one term a young person age 11+ could attend classes with us for up to 7 hours a week.
Our doors are always open and our common room always there for young people who need a bit more support or attention outside of those class hours (or just somewhere safe and warm and with some food!)
Therefore, we have to be creative about how to make this happen and so we turn to you, those who's views align with ours, who believe that our mission and our values are worth sharing, those who might resonate with our story or the stories of those we work with, those who wish they had role models and diversity in their own training …and those who might just have any extra £ they could spare...
Ok, I’m in and going to Donate. What next?
If we are very lucky and manage to reach our initial target we can also leverage all of your donations to get some match funding on this platform too so please do donate if you can and watch this space!! If we can do even better and meet our stretch target they would match that instead and you would all be incredible to make that happen
If you cant donate but can donate your time please get in touch! We have lots of volunteer opportunities
If you cant donate money or time then please simply share our story... we never know who may see it !
Please follow us on social media and see the results of your amazing donations and help! Drop us a line with your email so we can invite you to the shows or come and visit us at our Vauxhall Studios so we can say thank you
Everything crossed and thank you all in advance!
Team Boury Academy