Cooke & Arkwright

Sherman raises Portcullis

29/04/2010

Sherman Cymru has taken over 5,000 sq ft at Portcullis House, Cardiff, as a temporary base for its 28 permanent admin and production staff while the Sherman theatre building in Cathays undergoes a £5m transformation. 

The company has moved its Creative Learning, Artistic, Finance, Development, Administrative and Marketing teams to the sixth floor for the next eighteen months, while the Production and Operations team, which includes Wardrobe, has taken over the fifth floor and will also be regularly working off-site.  Separate storage and workshop space occupy different sites. 

“Portcullis House is equi-distant from Chapter, which we are using for production rehearsals and various Creative Learning and Literary activity, and Sherman, and also from our temporary workshop in Curran Road, so we can move around from one to the other quickly and easily,” said Margaret Jones, General Manager at Sherman Cymru.  “Portcullis House gives us fantastic near-360 degree uninterrupted views over the whole city.  After our admin office in the basement of Sherman, with no windows, no air and no sun, this is pure delight!  It’s good for staff morale to be in a nice environment for our temporary year out of the Sherman building – the staff team here is a bit like a family so being all together in the open plan environment we have at Portcullis House is important.”

Ben Bolton of Cooke & Arkwright and Gary Carver of Savills acted as joint agents on behalf of the landlord, Mapeley Estates Limited, and Sherman Cymru was represented by Robert Emanuel of Emanuel Jones in the deal.  They said, “Sherman Cymru is one of Cardiff’s most popular venues.  The theatre urgently needed a temporary base and we are pleased to have been able to agree a deal that takes their special circumstances into account. ”

Sherman Cymru’s long awaited re-development of its 1970s building is being funded by a Capital Lottery Grant from the Arts Council of Wales for £3.9m which has been boosted by a recent £130,000 allocation from the Welsh Assembly Government.  A public campaign to raise the remaining £1.5 million that has Siân Phillips and Matthew Rhys as patrons is also underway. The redevelopment will transform the building and vastly improve the experience that thousands of audience members will have when visiting the theatre in the future.  There will be a complete overhaul of the front of house area and a totally new look for the front of the theatre.  There will also be new seating, heating and ventilation systems as well as improvements to accessibility in all areas of the building. The backstage areas will be enhanced for staff and participants, including a new rehearsal room for talent to be developed.

Emyr Jenkins, Sherman Cymru Chairman said, “Our redevelopment plans are aimed to give the capital city of Wales’s only producing theatre the venue it, and its audience, deserves – something of which we can all be proud.”

Sherman Cymru Director, Chris Ricketts said, “The building work will vastly improve facilities, enhance our profile within the city and really enable us to be more ambitious with the productions we create and the performances we programme.”

Sherman Cymru will continue to produce work and tour to other theatres around Wales and the UK, and maintain its Creative Learning work.  Its current production is Llwyth, a Welsh language play which opened with a sell out run at Chapter Arts Centre and is now on tour around Wales.  The tour will finish with a three night run in London.  For more information on how you can support Sherman Cymru’s redevelopment, contact Emma Goad on 029 2064 6975 or email emma.goad@shermancymru.co.uk

Pictured, both photos l to r: David Williams, Emanuel Jones; Ben Bolton, Cooke & Arkwright; Chris Ricketts, Director, Emma Goad, Head of Development and Margaret Jones, General Manager, all of Sherman Cymru

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