On the 18th of November, PDP students and staff received an email telling us that the Platform Theatre will close at the end of this academic year as part of a ‘redevelopment project’. This is akin to taking away art’s studios, or fashion’s sewing machines. Our main space is under threat, and this could soon happen to other courses. Due to the unprecedented changes this will make to our education, we have launched the following open letter to UAL. We encourage anyone interested in the future of the arts, performance, or CSM, to sign in solidarity with us and our demands. 

To all in support of repurposing the Platform Theatre,

We are writing to you as concerned students, alumni, guests, parents, and supporters of Central Saint Martins (CSM). For all purposes when referencing PDP, we are referring to the programs within the Performance Design and Practice courses across all fields and levels of study.

It has recently come to our attention that there are plans for the Platform Theatre to be repurposed and turned into studio space and a lecture hall. We strongly oppose this for the following reasons.

The Platform Theatre is the lifeblood of PDP. It is the only full-scale, fully equipped professional theatre in the college, and provides not only a space to show our work to potential employers at the end of the year, but also a technical learning space where we regularly hone the skills that make us employable. The technicians and facilities teach us all elements of performance, including set design, lighting, sound and stage management. To take this away is to deny us essential opportunities necessary for our professional futures.

It is a unique space with exceptional resources, including the only fly space in the college, backstage workshops, dressing rooms, and access to highly specialist technicians across sound production, projection, and digital theatre. Without these resources, essential productions would become impossible. 4K Screenings essential to MA film, or shows like the recent Obscura, one of the most advanced shows ever made at CSM, simply could not be achieved in the Studio theatre. You would deprive us of an essential multimedia space, restricting opportunities for cross-course collaboration and going against the ethos of UAL. Converting such specialised facilities into something a nonspecific lecture hall and studio spaces would be a waste of the existing facilities and a loss to the college, students, and our audiences. We find it unthinkable that this theatre should be decommissioned, in the name of both sustainability and our education. We ask why other parts of the university and the Kings Cross area have not been considered above our primary resource.

The context of this decision is not lost on us. At a time where many theatres and small venues are struggling or shutting down, arts universities have a responsibility to support the arts, starting with its roots: the students. UAL’s failure to recognise this and decision to follow suit is irresponsible and puts budding performance makers at risk, threatening the future of the performance industry.

All of us joined the course with the prospect of a career in performance. As a university, you have a duty of care to your students. We paid for a course that would prepare us for industry. Many of us even chose the course based on the facilities available. Without the Platform Theatre, we are not receiving the resources advertised to us on applying, or the education we are currently paying for. This decision was not made in just a year, meaning essential information has been knowingly withheld from us, especially the first years. Entire modules of the BA handbook are based on skills we can only learn in the platform theatre. Losing this vital resource will irreversibly change the course in a way none of us paid or signed up for.

We understand that this decision was based on the 40% growth of CSM since 2011, and the lack of space this has created for other courses. We urge you to consider that we, too, have expanded in numbers. The BA has gone from ~ 15 people to over 50 people per year, and this puts strain on our spaces. The studio theatre and the labs are not big enough to support a large performance from one year, let alone all years of the BA and MA. To share three tiny performance spaces is simply not enough.

Once again, it appears that other courses and financial incentives have been placed above the quality of our own education. Performance is an essential art form, one enjoyed or used by every person alive in some way. Many of the other courses benefit from our collaboration and inspiration, including fashion, animation, and fine art. Our need for education should not be put below others. The lack of planning for the future of PDP is unacceptable. When £40M is invested into the campus to improve the spaces of other courses, with no investment into our own, it makes us wonder what our fees are paying for. We would love a solution that involves more collaborative work with other courses using the space if it means we continue to be able to use the theatre. To have no proper theatre is simply not an option.

We the students make the following demands, which we feel are reasonable and necessary to move forwards:

1)    Communication of these huge changes by a simple email is not enough. A face-to-face conversation where students can meet with those involved in this decision, not just those relaying the message, and have our concerns heard is the very least we deserve.

2)    We recognise that space is an issue at CSM but would like a guarantee that other methods of creating space are considered outside of removing PDP’s main resource.

3)    In the case of this decision going ahead despite all our objections, we require a guarantee that other space of a comparable size and value to our learning is provided, not just for showcases but year-round. Without this our course will no longer be able to provide the level of teaching we were promised by UAL and are paying for.

4)    The technicians who run these spaces are vital to the course. It is a non-negotiable to us that they remain employees of UAL as they are a huge resource for our education.

If these demands are not considered, we will be looking seriously at whether our course is worth studying any more. For the many of us whose decision to join the course was based upon the resources the theatre provides, we would consider it just that we received a refund for the teaching we will lose out on without a proper theatre, and compensation for the investment we have made so far into the course.

We call upon you to meet these demands with urgency.

With our deepest concern,