SIT is also in talks to form a centralised box office for selling tickets, and wants its website to become a resource for audiences by listing fringe venues and their productions across the UK. With around 26 members signed up so far, including Jermyn Street Theatre, Finborough Theatre and Theatre503, the society is open to any small independent UK venue. Yearly membership costs £50 and the body's first annual general meeting will take place in May.
National Touring Group - English Touring Theatre has teamed up with eight regional venues to launch a consortium that will present revivals of large-scale plays across the country. The National Touring Group will present its first show in the spring of 2014, a restaging of the Shakespeare's Globe production of In Extremis. The group, which also consists of Blackpool Grand, Darlington Civic Theatre, Hall for Cornwall, Cambridge Arts Theatre, Theatre Royal Brighton, the Marlowe Theatre Canterbury, Malvern Theatres and Wolverhampton Grand, has received £1.14m in funding from Arts Council England.
It will use the funding to tour one large-scale production a year from 2014 to 2016. The scheme follows ETT's tour of the Shakespeare's Globe production of Anne Boleyn in 2012. It ran in many of the theatres that are now part of NTG and went on to win the best touring production at the Theatre Awards UK last year, following a public vote hosted by The Stage.
In The Sale Room - A signed copy of The Beatles' album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band has been bought at auction in the US for $290,500 (£191,000). The selling price far exceeded the $30,000 (£19,700) originally estimated for the rare LP record. It was bought by an unnamed buyer from the Midwest, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
(Jim Evans)
