Volunteer-Led Theatres: Meshworks of a Coastal Town

This chapter explores the role of volunteer-led theatres in towns by focusing on the Stables Theatre in Hastings, a seaside town in East Sussex, and uses the idea of ‘meshworks’ as a tool to think this through. Meshwork is a word used by anthropologist Tim Ingold as a metaphor for how life is lived along entangled lines of becoming – emergent, unfixed, unexpected. Theatres can be understood as existing in, being sustained by and constantly becoming entangled with the wider meshwork of their towns. This chapter explores this idea by placing the Stables within wider discussions around English coastal towns – of seasonal rhythms, cultural and arts led regeneration and the complex landscape of volunteering: including themes of care, creativity, and community ownership – before following the threads back to the theatre. Here, the chapter draws on conversations with volunteers involved in the theatres’ day-to-day running, those involved in the theatre's amateur productions, as well as local professional theatre-makers who have recently started to use the Stables as a space to perform, rehearse, and workshop. Taken together, the chapter illuminates how wider meshworks have encouraged a hybrid model of theatre and theatre-making to emerge in Hastings, where amateurs, volunteers, and professionals are sharing space but also working together in different ways.