Welcome

Welcome from our Theatre Manager

Welcome everyone, I write this message halfway through this year’s programme of events and I can truly say we have seen some fabulous performances. All these new events were really well supported and played to packed houses; most notably our new series of spoken word events. The first two events, Matt Rendell’s Inside Story of the Tour de France and An evening with Adam Frost, were completely sold out. For those of you who missed these performances we have managed to book Carlton Kirby’s True Tales of the Tour de France and an evening with garden designer and BBC Gardeners World presenter Joe Swift for next year.  While in other news, Adam Frost enjoyed his time with us so much that he has confirmed he will come back to our theatre in 2026!

Without looking too far into the future, the remainder of this year looks set to be another sell out, with a whole range of performances and events now confirmed. Our ever popular tribute nights will include Cilla Black and Elvis, while our new Friday Folk events will see us welcome Harp And A Monkey back for two unique performances; their first, a concert featuring their award winning music and storytelling; the second will see a special Armistice concert that was specially commissioned by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, featuring traditional and lesser known songs of the Great War.

Local favourites Stape Silver Band and the students of Ryedale School will also return with two special concerts in their regular dates of September and December respectively.

Pickering Musical Society will also be performing in their usual October spot. This year the concert is entitled Wonders of the West End and will see a change in director.  With Society stalwart Maureen Symonds retiring, Luke Arnold will take the reins, ably supported by Courtney Brown as assistant director, who will take on the role of the October concert in years to come.

The friends of Kirk Theatre continue to support us with their fundraising efforts and this year will be no exception; the calendar of events can be found in this booklet or on our website.

Our hugely successful Pop Up Cinema continues on the first Wednesday of each month with a matinee and evening showing at 2:30pm and 7:30pm respectively. Please keep an eye out to see upcoming films and live screenings.

This year sees the start of our huge fund raising efforts to convert the former chapel balcony mezzanine into a new performance space. The Sylvia Allanson Studio, as it will be known, will become a smaller, more intimate performance space ideal for encouraging young performers and new productions, together with being used as a multi arts exhibition space. More information on the project is available on our website.

Finally I would just like to say a huge thank you for your continued patronage of our theatre. As you all know, we are all volunteers and completely self-funded and without the support of our audiences, we would not be able to run this fantastic venue. I do hope you find something of interest within this booklet and I look forward to seeing you at one or more of our events.