Doubts raised over Boulevard Theatre’s future as producing house

London’s Boulevard Theatre – which had only been open for six months before the pandemic forced venues to close – is unlikely to reopen as a producing theatre, it has emerged.

Former artistic director Rachel Edwards was among about 40 staff made redundant late last year following the theatre’s forced closure in March. She told The Stage it was “safe to say it won’t be reopening as a [producing] theatre anytime soon”.

The venue opened in October 2019, featuring what was billed as “Europe’s most advanced revolving theatre”. The space, which can seat up to 165 people, can be transformed within minutes because of the ability of both the stalls and balcony levels to rotate.

On the Boulevard Theatre’s website, founder Fawn James, from Soho Estates, said all staff had been served with redundancy notices.

“I will be forever grateful for the tireless efforts that everyone put in to sharing in and creating my dream of reopening the Boulevard and for the exciting inaugural season that we had ahead of us. We had such exciting prospects, which have sadly been taken away from us by causes out of our control,” she said.

Edwards said Soho Estates had underwritten the project but, with its own business affected by the pandemic, the company was unable to continue funding it.

“It is a real estate company, so when the pandemic hit, it became apparent very quickly that its wider business would be battered by Covid. The Boulevard really was a passion project. The company already knew it would make a loss – it didn’t make much economical sense in the best of times when it could underwrite the venue, but when Covid hit it could not afford to carry on as its wider business was suffering so much,” she said.

She said James would like to reopen the venue in the future, but said: “At the moment it’s not viable to underwrite it. Unless funded generously by Soho Estates, it can’t exist as a commercial producing house – it does not make economic sense.”

However, James told The Stage she had plans to reopen the venue, even if not as a producing house.

“The Boulevard and all theatres have been devastated by this pandemic and it’s crucial that the future of arts and culture is supported, and I will be doing everything in my power to reopen the Boulevard when it is safe and viable to open at full capacity,” she said.

She added: “I was hugely excited about what we had managed to achieve in the six months we had been open and what the future held. I had a wonderful team who worked tirelessly in building the Boulevard in to what it was and it was just such unfortunate timing for us as a new theatre to have to close the business that we had spent years creating. The effects of the past year have led to the need to slightly adapt business strategies, but I am excited to be developing plans for reopening the Boulevard later this year. I cannot reveal the details of this yet but watch this space.”

It is believed the space could reopen as a high-end cabaret space.