The University of Westminster’s arts venue The Soho Poly has received £3,000 from the Noël Coward Foundation to support the Soho Poly: Heritage and Futures project. The funding will help with the production, research and development of new theatre shows, giving up-and-coming young directors the opportunity to grow.
The Noël Coward Foundation was launched in 2000 in the name of English playwright and composer Noël Coward. The charity awards grants to educational and development projects across the Arts, working with music, academic research, playwriting, theatre and technical training.
In 2023 Matt Morrison and Guy Osborn, artistic directors of the Soho Poly, visited the Noël Coward Room, which is a rich repository for Noël Coward’s personal effects including his typewriter, writing desk and personal photo albums. The visit was hosted by chair of the Foundation Alan Brodie and Peter Kyle, a former Governor of the University of Westminster and former CEO of Shakespeare’s Globe. Alignment was drawn between shared values and objectives of the Foundation and the Soho Poly, which reopened its doors in 2023 following a successful four-year fundraising campaign.
The Soho Poly is proposing to mark its rebirth with a week that showcases both work drawn from the theatre’s history and brand-new drama from the next generation of theatre makers in Autumn 2024, and funding from the Noël Coward Foundation will support this endeavour.
The Soho Poly will present a week of play extracts from Thornton Wilder’s dramatic sequence The Ages of Man, two pieces from which – Childhood and Infancy – were the Soho Poly’s first ever lunchtime productions in 1972. These plays will speak to questions of generational change and the passing on of ideas and experiences across time.
The funding will also support a week of research and development on a new play sourced from within the University’s student writing community, offering a significant opportunity to an up-and-coming young director.
Jules Attanayake, Development Officer within the Fundraising and Development Team, said: “We are very grateful to the Noël Coward Foundation Trustees for their support. This funding will go a long way in securing our diverse and varied artistic programming plans in the Soho Poly over the coming year. We look forward to continuing and building access to our productions to underrepresented audiences and practitioners, so the arts are accessible to everybody.”
Find out how to support the Soho Poly via the website or email the Development Team.
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