Work is well underway for the new Garden Room at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre.
The new build situated in front of the beloved York theatre will provide an indoor space for a bar, two additional toilets, and a sitting area – perfect for meeting with friends or family before the show.
The Garden Room is expected to open in July. YorkMix spoke with theatre director Dan Shrimpton to find out more about the project – take a look at our video below.
The Garden Room will replace the temporary caravan bar currently in place.
There’s been a lot of “fundraising activity going on to help raise the money for the Garden Room, which is about £140,000”, through the Heart for the Arts appeal and the ‘Buy a Brick’ campaign.
The ‘Buy a Brick’ campaign means that anyone who donates money to buy a brick for the Garden Room can have their name displayed on it, or donate it for someone else, or could put a quote from their favourite musical or play.
With work on the build starting at the end of April, the project is coming along in leaps and bounds.
“It’s fantastic that we’ve actually been able to build it and that it’s going up so quickly as well,” said Jospeh Rowntree Theatre director, Dan Shrimpton. “So we’ll have it in use faster than we had expected.”
The main contractor for the project is Woodstone1 Ltd. The Garden Room is expected to open “early July at the latest, but we’re hoping it’ll be there sooner.
“But that means when we get into the autumn season, where we’re usually quite busy and it’s cold and dark, we’ve got somewhere for the audience to go and have a sit down and get a drink.”
The initial planning for the Garden Room is for five years, but during that time the theatre will be planning their next steps of developing and extending the building and eventually bringing the space they’ve created outside, inside.
“That’s going to take planning time to do, but we wanted to give our audience something that was extra and better than we’ve currently got.”
To stay up to date with the Garden Room build, visit the Joseph Rowntree Theatre website.