Earlier this year we performed the world premiere season of Slingsby’s new show, The Young King, at the Adelaide Festival of Arts 2016. The season was sold out, extended, and sold out again. The show received glowing reviews and has generated much interest from national and international presenters, which means we can tour the show extensively in coming years.
“Slingsby’s beautifully staged adaptation of Wilde’s visionary parable has woven a spell that offers hope for a better world.”
– Peter Wilkins, Canberra Critics Circle
Read more about the success of The Young King here.
But then, with the smell of success still in our nostrils, on Wednesday 11 May we lost our funding from the Federal Government. In total 62 companies like Slingsby from across the country were in the same boat, after massive cuts and changes to funding body the Australia Council.
Suddenly all our plans have been thrown overboard.
Read about our experience over the last couple of weeks here.
Slingsby is a theatre company; if we can’t make theatre, we can’t exist.
As news travelled there began an outpouring of support from people around the world, urging us to find a way for Slingsby to continue.
Late last week we received a wonderful email from actor, Tim Overton (The Young King), telling us how important Slingsby is to him. With Tim’s permission we share his email to Andy and Jodi here.
On Wednesday 18 May we launched a fundraising campaign.
With your support Slingsby will continue to produce original work and tour our in-demand repertoire, for the benefit of adult and family audiences nationally and internationally through 2017.
Financial support from the community will also reinforce to our government stakeholders the importance of Slingsby and the theatre we create and tour.
We set an initial campaign target, which we reached in just 21 hours. In response to the overwhelming support we’ve increased our campaign target.
If you would like to support Slingsby, we kindly ask you to make a tax deductible donation now. To those of you who have already donated, much gratitude.
We’re passionate, determined and full of ideas. We’ll keep you posted.
Andy Packer, Jodi Glass & the Board of Slingsby