THE Billings, a dedicated community venue at the heart of the Theatre Royal Bath, will open in spring 2027. This will be the fourth and final public and performance space within the theatre’s historic city centre site. The project, funded with support from more than 4,200 donors, has been fully approved, and work is now under way.

As well as the audience donations, the project received generous grants from The Miss Beryl Billings Charitable Trust, The Garfield Weston Foundation and the Wolfson Foundation as well as Andrew Fletcher OBE, The Medlock Charitable Trust, Christopher Garek and many more. The Theatre Royal Bath’s board committed £300,000 from its reserves for the project, enabling construction to begin.

Opening on St John’s Place, The Billings will be a space where artists at any stage of their careers can play with new ideas and try out new work. It will be a venue for grass-root and amateur performances, open mic nights, rehearsed readings, scratch nights, festival events and much more.

It will also be home to the theatre’s adult participation programme, Engage, with a range of workshops, courses, outreach groups and plays. And it will be open to all – The Billings will transform the last unused space at Theatre Royal Bath into a fringe-style studio theatre and dedicated foyer, with step-free access, where the opportunity to perform and create is accessible to the local community.

The Billings has been designed by the world-famous, Stirling Prize-winning, theatre architects, Howarth Tompkins, whose other projects have included work at London’s Royal Court Theatre, Old Vic Theatre and the National Theatre, and Bath’s children’s theatre, The Egg.

The Billings offers an easy to use, affordable, professionally-supported, studio theatre designed for community creativity. The venue will facilitate creative learning, community partnerships and new work, support emerging talent and aiming to triple the Engage programme to collaborate with more than 1,500 participants and 3,000 audience members annually within the first four years.

The Billings community studio will connect with the main house – Theatre Royal Bath – and The Egg and Ustinov Studio in one theatre district. The 40-seat venue will provide an easy-to-use and affordable new entry point into the city’s creative scene.