The Touring Box
A portable black box theatre that transforms village halls and community spaces into intimate theatrical worlds.
Why village halls?
Across Scotland, village halls are where communities meet, celebrate and feel part of something beyond their own household.
But for many rural and semi-rural audiences, seeing professional theatre means travelling to a city or larger town, paying for transport or parking and making a full evening of it. That is not always practical or affordable.
We have visited nearly 40 potential venues across Scotland, and have found many halls excited to host the Touring Box and keen to help make each performance a wider social occasion for the whole community.
The appetite is there. The missing piece is infrastructure.
How it works
A village hall is not automatically a theatre. Audiences need to feel transported to another world, while performers need a contained, technically reliable space.
The Touring Box solves that problem. Our lightweight structure includes seating, staging, flooring, lighting and sound. It fits into a large panel van and can be assembled inside medium to large village halls across Scotland.
Inside, a familiar community room becomes an atmospheric black box theatre, full of anticipation of a brilliant story and a memorable night out.
Once built, the Touring Box can be used year after year, creating a sustainable route for professional theatre to reach communities that are too often overlooked.
The first tour
The Touring Box will launch with The Haven, an original comedy-drama about the fallout in a small community after offensive graffiti appears on the walls of the local church.
It will be exactly the kind of work Red Squash exists to make: funny, emotionally engaging, entertaining and designed to bring audiences together.
Current Funding Position
£95,211
Total project cost
£25,000
Secured or pledged
£23,087
In applications and planned fundraising
£47,124
Remaining funding gap
This is one-off seed funding to build the portable theatre and launch the first tour. Once the infrastructure exists, our aim is for future touring to be supported through ticket income, without the need for ongoing financial support.
What support could make possible
£2,640 funds the staging
£12,000 funds the lighting and sound equipment
£20,000 funds the touring vehicle
Help us get the Touring Box on the road
We would be delighted to hear from anyone interested in supporting the project, partnering with us or helping us make useful introductions. We are particularly keen to connect with people who share our belief that professional theatre should be accessible to communities across Scotland.
To discuss supporting the project or to request our full Case for Support, please contact:
info@redsquashtheatre.co.uk
Red Squash Theatre 