To establish a production fund over and above the regular income which Riding Lights needs to keep its doors open. Each new production needs additional project funding to ensure its success.

Raising money for...

We are aiming to inspire at least 500 of our friends and Members to try to raise £500 each to allow us to create our next four new productions for four different target groups before the end of 2012. Major shows, touring for at least 10 weeks, cost around £50K to commission and deliver to as wide an audience as possible. So we reckon that £250K will produce FOUR & MORE…

As christians we are aiming high so we can be generous to those audiences that can’t always afford to pay for ‘lifechanging theatre’ from Riding Lights. After more than 30 years of touring, we believe we know how to offer all kinds of audiences theatre which touches the spiritual heart and explores important issues in an open and entertaining way.

Riding Lights has been privileged to influence the lives of thousands of young people all over the country for good and for God – in their schools or colleges, training young professional actors, by running vibrant Youth Theatres and Summer Schools. The most requested Roughshod session in school, focuses on resisting peer pressure and discovering that every individual is loved by God. We want to commission a new play on this theme.

Whenever we are able to perform to audiences in prison there is always a strong response – from enthusiastic, grateful inmates who engage in lively discussion, from chaplains and educational staff who say their jobs are made easier and from our Roughshod actors who often find working in prison the most rewarding of all. Occasionally we have been able to tour a full play designed for a prison context: WALKOUT! (adaptation of The Pilgrim’s Progress) and HOPE OPERA (Stories of Hope). It’s high time to commission the next one.

Riding Lights has always played an important role in entertaining the christian community alongside its friends and neighbours. The company has been able to tell moving stories, stimulate discussion and focus attention on significant current issues. In this way, the company has helped to articulate a christian voice within the wider community… plays on science and faith, international debt, playground violence, fair trade, terrorism, living out the Gospel, parenting, the plight of the Palestinian church, clean water for all… are just some of the subjects which have led to the 2009 production Origins & Lemons, considering Genesis and Creation. Some of these topics have been suggested to us by our Members. We’re ready to tackle the next one!

Part of our calling is to contribute to the mainstream of British theatre. It is vital for us to keep producing excellent theatre with a spiritual heart in the secular sphere and, despite the challenges, make sure that we are not solely performing in schools, prisons and churches. Our 2007 collaboration with CMS and York Theatre Royal, African Snow (addressing the legacy of the slave trade), toured major theatres and was also briefly in the West End. Further collaborations are under discussion, but we need the means to commission the next new play/classic adaptation to keep the fine tradition going.