The Laurence Batley Theatre is Kirklees’ largest performance venue, with an exciting range of shows over two performance spaces. Our shining light is our programme. It is carefully crafted for and with our communities, resident companies and huge voluntary arts base.
Our small, creative and resourceful team – supported by equally passionate and determined volunteers – consistently confounds expectations. We honour and continue the story of a theatre demanded and founded by a community which had the vision to know what a difference art makes.
We serve local people: 85% of our audience is within 30 minutes of our venue. We celebrate and challenge their creativity and interests – and make ourselves accessible to all, irrespective of background or circumstances. Our outreach work, embedded within communities themselves, is a shared adventure, developed and built over many years so people can fully own what they discover.
We’re opening up our venue, our skills and our networks to nurture talent, local and national – to nourish artists and help them realise their ambitions and achieve excellence.
Tenacious, responsive and brave – We are LBT.
The LBT is proud to be part of the Artsmark Partner Programme and we can support you on your school’s Artsmark journey through a range of offers.
Our programme covers drama, new writing, children’s shows, pantomime, circus, dance and comedy. We offer specially discounted tickets at £8 for those under 26 for many of our shows with one free for every 10 bought.
For Artsmark schools we offer the chance for children and young people to meet creative industry professionals through free talks and post show discussions.
We also offer occasional free outreach workshops suitable for both primary and secondary schools attached to specific touring shows at the LBT.
Additionally we provide free teacher packs for certain shows to enhance children and young people’s learning. Free guided tours of the theatre delivered by our friendly team are available on Wednesdays (other days by request). We also offer support with writing, with a handy ‘How to Write a Blog’ guide available on our website, along with reviewing opportunities for young people attending our shows; they can get their writing featured on our blog.
We are continuing to develop our Artsmark offer, this will include CPD offers for education professionals, and will include training sessions that cover areas such mental health and wellbeing, metacognition, language and literacy, using drama for curriculum based learning, and more. Find out more about our Artsmark offer here https://www.thelbt.org/artsmark-offer/ or drop a line with any enquiries to katherine@thelbt.org