Backstage at The Old Vic: An exciting new hub for community and education outreach

Last November, The Old Vic, of which RBC is a principal partner, opened Backstage, a brand-new multi-purpose building. Ten years in the making, the building sits right next to the iconic theatre and contains six floors that are home to a café and bar open to the public, a free-to-use script library, an outdoor terrace and a bookable private events space.

A new hub for community education

Among its many other facilities, Backstage has a place for its staff, a green room and a rehearsal and performance space. And then there’s the Clore Learning Centre, a dedicated studio that is home to The Old Vic’s education and community programmes, which will allow the majority of The Old Vic’s outreach work to take place on-site for the first time.

Creativity, education and community are part of The Old Vic’s DNA – since 2015, their team has run 43 education and community projects, working with nearly 52,000 people in the process. And as Rowena Russell, deputy executive director and chief operating officer at The Old Vic, explains, Backstage will allow them to turbocharge what they do.

“Across our many projects, we reach out to different parts of the community, engaging with people aged six to 100,” she says. “We already work with around 9,000 people a year, and the ambition with Backstage is to expand that. Before having this space, 90% of our work took place off-site, so it’s really exciting for us to have a place where participants can come and feel welcome and included.”

Increasing the focus on students with special educational needs

A key theme of The Old Vic’s outreach work is employability and social mobility, and Backstage will help elevate this effort. One programme set to benefit from this new building is Take the Lead, of which RBC has been principal partner since 2018. The programme has grown from originally serving students in two schools to now preparing hundreds of young people in Years 11 to 13 for the world of work.

“We now work with 40 schools every year, from all over London, some of which are brand new to engaging with the programme, while others are returning because the experience has been so positive,” explains Hannah Fosker, The Old Vic’s education and community director. “Having Backstage as a focal point means we can look at new and exciting ways to grow Take the Lead and all our programmes.”

While Take the Lead works with schools that have low arts provision and meet other criteria, such as high provision of free school meals, it has also increased its focus on students with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) or who require alternative provision (AP). These are young people who often face additional barriers when it comes to the workplace.

As Fosker points out: “Some of the students who participate in Take the Lead may never have been into the centre of London, so coming to The Old Vic and Backstage may be the first time they’ve experienced the buzz of Waterloo or even been to a theatre.”

Building employment skills in young people

Take the Lead, which runs from October to February each year, focuses on helping students develop five core skills that they can use in life and in the workplace: communication, self-management, self-belief, teamwork and problem-solving. The programme comprises a number of events and workshops – the first of which is a launch event in the auditorium of The Old Vic itself, where the students hear from guest speakers offering insight on various career paths. 

Some of the speakers even come from RBC. “We provide speakers for the launch event, to give the students an idea of what they can do in the future, no matter what their background is,” says Richard Douglas, director of Brand and Citizenship at RBC Wealth Management. “One of our speakers last year had a career in the armed forces before joining RBC, and another was from our comms team, so we could show the students that working at a bank has more variety than they might have expected.”

After that initial event, the students participate in two workshops that have typically taken place in their schools but will now likely take place at Backstage. The workshops focus on performance, physicality and communication skills as well as teamwork and presenting a pitch for an Old Vic production.

Gaining experience in a work-like environment

In the final part of the programme, in February, students are invited to RBC’s European headquarters, at 100 Bishopsgate in London, to put the skills they’ve learned into practice in a work environment. This includes networking, taking part in mock interviews and building on their previous pitch.

“It’s a chance for the students to come to a big corporate central London office and experience a very different environment from what they’re used to,” says Douglas. “People from across RBC volunteer year after year to help with interview practice, giving feedback to the students on what they did well and how they can improve. There’s an incredible buzz and enthusiasm with hundreds of students around.”

The future of community investment

While Take the Lead goes on hiatus between March and September, The Old Vic team is constantly evolving the programme and continuing its other community and education projects, and Backstage will play an essential role in those going forward.

“We’ve already moved some of our programmes into Backstage,” explains Russell. “And we’re very excited to see all of the opportunities that this opens up across everything we do. We have a brilliant team working on our projects and Backstage is an amazing addition.”