​

Following two reports on English Theatre in 2000, the Arts Council injected an additional £25m into the regional theatre, to cover a five year period from 2003. At that end of that period, ACE invited tenders for two reports on the effect of that boost in expenditure. The British Theatre Consortium made a bid to research and write a report on the impact of the boost on new writing.

    Titled Writ Large, BTC’s report was published in July 2009. In addition to in-depth interviews, the core of the report was a questionnaire sent to 89 subsidized, building-based theatre companies, 65 of whom replied. The most significant result from the data was that just under half (47%) of the repertoire of our reporting theatres was new writing. This was a dramatic increase in the proportion of new plays in the repertoire, as was the box office performance of new writing during the 2003-8 period. 

At a time when it was assumed that the individually-written new play was in decline, Writ Large made a significant impact on policy.

The report’s recommendations included the reinstatement of new writing as an Arts Council priority, and the undertaking of further research into the repertoire in the future.