Stagedoor Academy has been helping children across East Yorkshire since 2000 by building their confidence through performance arts (singing and acting). In these 20 years we have seen hundreds of students mature, grow and blossom into confident and professional young adults and it‘s sad for us every time one ‘flies the nest’.

Our ethos is, and always will be, that we will help children, we will be there for them, as a mentor, a friend, often a shoulder to cry on! We never profit from our performances, every penny raised (often more from our own pockets!) goes into the next performance so we can give the students an experience of what it would be like to perform in the West-End. We hire wigs, costumes, sets, musicians and more from every corner of the Country to make the performance perfect - and that’s exactly what we did with The Addams Family.

Unfortunately, due to COVID-19, we’re not able to put on our performance in March / April as planned :( - we’re gutted. The problem with stage productions is that sets, licences, costumes (almost everything!) must have their rent paid-for upfront; which we do. We take out loans and use our savings to pay for do this, knowing (often hoping!) we will get the money back when the show goes up. We take this risk because it’s the right thing to do for our students and it’s been a model that’s worked... until now. Deferring our show (which was a last-case resort!) until later in the year means we won’t get any money coming in to repay the hire costs, and some deposits on rentals are lost and we need to repay these to do the show later.

What’s worse, the latest advice from the Government is to close schools and limit social gatherings so we’re not even able to meet to run classes / rehearsals - as Janie (who runs Stagedoor Academy) is a sole trader and relies on class income to survive, not being able to teach means no income which worsens the situation regarding outstanding hire costs.

With outgoings from the show to repay, and no income to do this (likely for several weeks or months), things don’t look good for Stagedoor Academy.

We want to continue supporting our students; each one is like our own child and the thought of losing this group, and them losing us, is heart-breaking. We’ve always been fair, we’ve always paid for things that other groups charge for (costumes, makeup etc.) - yes, this was maybe naive but we wouldn’t change it for the world! The smile on each person’s face on show week is priceless and nothing can beat it! :D

So we’re asking for your help. There is no support from the government for sole traders impacted from COVID-19. We have invoices to pay... and we need income to eat, pay rent, survive! Please consider backing our cause - Stagedoor Academy is in its 20th year and we’re excited for the next 20... and the 20 after that! We want to help hundreds more students to grow, to gain new skills, to be confident in themselves! We can’t do this if we have to shut down :(

Thanks for reading and for considering to support us.

- Stagedoor Academy xx