James Moore d’Emerdale supports Cheltenham Playhouse fundraising

An Emmerdale actor has supported a campaign to protect the future of an 80 -year -old theater.

James Moore, who plays Ryan stocks on soap, said he owed a large part of his career to Cheltenham Playhouse, where he had acted in many teenage productions.

The theater hopes to collect £ 80,000 after its reserves were used during the pandemic.

“It is such an important place. They do so much for young players in the region,” said Moore, who lives in Gloucester.

The theater, which receives no fixed funding, is a fundraising to celebrate its 80th year “so that for 80 years, we can prosper as a center for the arts of this wonderful community”.

It has been open as a theater since 1945 and has organized more than 100 performances per year and housing a theater studio, the only school of arts in the United Kingdom show based in a work theater.

Mr. Moore, who has appeared in Emmerdale since 2018, said: “I have so many good memories to be there.”

He said that many people had played there “went to massive dramatic schools in London and New York and all over the world”.

“I think many people would say, including me, that they owe their career in one way to what they have learned in the Playhouse,” he said.

The trustee Neil Burge said that the theater “is very viable as an running company”, but the pandemic saw its savings pot used “not as we wanted, just to maintain, just to stay in life”.

He said that the building, an old bathing house, is aging and that they find it difficult to follow its maintenance.

Vickie Long, president of Cheltenham Operatic and Dramatic Society, said that she was “vital” that the theater had remained open.

She said it had provided a “safe place” and helped her find a new community when she was an orphan at the age of 13.

The latest production of the group, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory have a distribution aged 13 to over 70 years and the theater “gathered us all, all ages, all history,” said Ms. Long.