Support the Albany

The Albany Needs Your Support

We are an arts centre in South East London that exists to inspire, develop and support creativity for the benefit of our community. With roots dating back to the nineteenth century, we now face our greatest challenge for survival.

The current COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdown has had a massive impact on our ability to generate income and we expect to lose over £900,000 this year. Despite the circumstances, we continued to work throughout the crisis, delivering projects for members of our community with our remote Meet Me and  young people’s programme and continued to support local artists and creatives. However, with lost income and reduced opportunities to generate revenue, the future is still far from certain and our vital work is at risk.

Even while closed to the public, we have still incurred significant costs. Our ageing building requires regular maintenance, including costly critical capital and electrical works.

A community hub for South East London

We are not only a venue for world-class theatre, live music and spoken word. For fifty-one weeks of the year we are also home to Meet Me, an award-winning arts programme for isolated older people run in association with Entelechy Arts. We’re home to a vibrant Youth Programme, unlocking the creativity of young people and supporting young people to collaborate, develop skills and become leaders of their own creative projects. We are home to 21 resident companies, providing office space and other facilities and working together as artistic collaborators and, partners to deliver our community programmes.

We have been grateful recipients of the help of community volunteers during the pandemic and felt the support of our audiences, many of whom opted for ticket credits over refunds.

But we need your help if we are going to continue our vital work with communities and remain an intrinsic part of South East London for another one hundred years or more. 

To say thank you, we are offering exciting rewards such as edible gifts from the Albany Garden, exclusive Albany tote bags, and vintage original prints from the Albany archives (choose from the two designs below). You can fund a primary school class to visit the Albany for the first time, or support a whole programme of Youth activities. Everyone who donates to our campaign will receive a massive thank you, be acknowledged as part of our Albany Anchors Covid Supporters board, and receive a shout-out online.