About Us

The Black Thetare Live consortium funding for touring concluded in 2018.  Tara Arts continues to maintain this website to profile tours, companies and venues who programme touring theatre by Black, Asian Minority Ethnic artists.

Black Theatre Live was a pioneering national consortium of 8 regional theatres led by Tara Arts, committed to effecting change nationally for Black, Asian & Minority Ethnic touring theatre through a sustainable 3-year programme of national touring, structural support and audience development.

Black Theatre Live was a partnership of Tara Arts (London), Derby Theatre, Queen's Hall Arts (Hexham), Lighthouse (Poole), Theatre Royal Bury St. Edmunds, Theatre Royal Margate, Stratford Circus Arts Centre (London) and Key Theatre (Peterborough).

Black Theatre Live worked with emerging and established Black, Asian & Minority Ethnic (BAME) companies and artists across England to commission and tour high quality productions to the consortia theatres over the 3 years to 2018.

Its structured audience development and community engagement programmes included live digital streaming and cinema relay.

The audience development ambition for Black Theatre Live venues included traditional (white) and non-traditional (BAME) to guard against a mentaliity of white audiences over BAME. The consortium theatres represented rural and urban locations, both white and BAME demographics, market and seaside towns. The 8 consortium venues included a significant range of expertise across small and mid-scale auditoria, producing and receiving houses, arts centres and theatres in England.

We were delighted to receive support from Arts Council England, Esmee Fairbairn Foundation, John Ellerman Foundation & Ernest Cook Trust to transform the national landscape of Black & Asian touring theatre during the three years of this initiative.