Tramshed has been a home to performance since 1973 when it was transformed from a tram charging station by the visionary Greenwich based actor Ewan Hooper. Artsists as varied as Lindsay Kemp, Jools Holland and Squeeze, Sir Lenny Henry, Dire Straits Julian Clary (as the Joan Collins Fan Club) and Paul Merton were amongst the many that developed their work for dedicated audiences during the 1970s and 80s.

At the same time Ewan Hooper also established the Greenwich Young People’s Theatre (GYPT) becoming a training ground for internationally renowned artists such as Sir Gary Oldman, DéObia Oparéi and Bernardine Evaristo. You can read Bernardine Evaristo’s beautiful account of her time with us here.

Since 2009 GYPT moved into Tramshed and has been facilitating the space ever since. As a charity we are committed to advancing “education for the public benefit by the promotion of the arts, in particular but not exclusively the art of drama”. To share what this means in practice we are sharing the following programming policy:

Our current theatre programme reflects our historic and ongoing commitment to platforming excellent artistic process and products.

We have a studio theatre space with up to 153 seats. We use a retractable rack and can offer up multiple rows of 17 or a clear floor. We have an aerial rig and large projection screen. For more details about our venue offer click here.

We seek out representative work to reflect our community - our participants are

• 61% aged under 18 (20% aged under 16 ONS Censes for Greenwich and Woolwich 2021)

• 55% Global Majority (44% ONS Censes for Greenwich and Woolwich 2021)

• 36% Disabled (13% under the Equality Act ONS Censes for Greenwich and Woolwich 2021)

Tramshed does not have a large programming budget, typically we fund work we book from box office sales. As a result we welcome a good dialogue with artists and companies on comms and marketing to ensure we can continue to deliver this work.

We are members of Future Arts Centres and Theatre for Young Audiences (TYA) Venue Programmers Consortium to help inform our strategy and delivery.

If appropriate - for example in a commission or partnership - we will have upfront conversations about sustainable practice and AI.

If you think your work meets our programming policy and would like to send us details about activities you offer please do forward them to Bethan and Joe via info@tramshed.org with Programming in the subject line and we will be in touch if we think we can take the conversation further.

Please don’t hesitate to send a reminder if you don’t hear back from us. Apologies that we are not able to send any feedback at this time. If you still haven’t heard back after a couple of messages please be reassured that this isn’t a reflection on the quality of your work or our interest in you for the future.

Jackie Le, International Aerial Artist, Performer at Tramshed’s November 24 Fundraiser