Birmingham Rep, Youth and Community, and the Products and Possibilities of Precarity

Birmingham Rep, a leading producing theatre based in the UK’s
‘second city’, has historically had a complex relationship with the cultural priorities of its home city. In recent years, Birmingham City
Council has faced multiple challenges represented by debt
15 burden, government-imposed cuts in public funding, scandals
linked to failing children’s services and fears of Islamic radicalisation in the city’s schools. From a detailed consideration
of the way the Rep’s artistic policy has been shaped in the context of chronic financial instability and these broader challenges, I argue that the increasingly central position youth
20 and community engagement has assumed signals a major paradigm shift in the expectations associated with the role and function of the regional producing theatre in the UK.