Extra funding for theatre project

Additional funding has been secured from the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority to support the construction of the Shakespeare North Playhouse, in Prescot.The £4.05m of funding is in addition to £6.5m announced in May 2018 and takes the total investment in the project from the combined authority to £10.55m.Last May the authority also approved an £8m investment in major upgrades to Prescot train station and transport connections in the town centre.The Shakespeare North Playhouse is an new theatre and education space that will celebrate Knowsley’s links with Elizabethan drama and Shakespeare himself, with the aim of attracting visitors and students.Prescot has fascinating links with Shakespeare and Elizabethan drama. In Elizabethan times Prescot was the only English town outside London to have a purpose-built indoor playhouse, and the support and patronage of the Earls of Derby at Knowsley Hall played a notable part in the development of Shakespearean drama.At the heart of the Shakespeare North Playhouse will be a reproduction 350-seat Jacobean theatre based on the Inigo Jones’ Cockpit-at-Court, built in 1629, while other parts of the building will include education facilities, studio theatre, exhibition area, café/bar and outdoor spaces.The Playhouse is expected to create 20 permanent full-time jobs and about 175 full-time jobs across the region and 185 temporary construction jobs.In addition to the combined authority funding towards the construction of the Playhouse, Knowsley Council has contributed £12.2m and national government has contributed £5m. Further funding will be addressed by targeted philanthropic appeals and a capital fundraising charity is also in place.Construction work on the Shakespeare North Playhouse and the transport improvements has already started and is expected to be completed by 2021.