Red Ladder Theatre Company

{{Short description|Touring theater company}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}

Red Ladder Theatre Company is a national touring theatre company, funded by the Arts Council England and Leeds City Council. It is based at the Yorkshire Dance Centre, Leeds.

The company was founded in London in 1968, during the Vietnam War, as a radical socialist theatre known as agitprop. The company moved to Leeds in the 1970s and is still based in the city. During the 1980s, the company changed its co-operative structure to a hierarchy and became a company that specialised in targeted work for youth audiences.

Red Ladder also hosted the Asian Theatre School, later Freedom Studios,Twentieth-Century British Theatre: Industry, Art and Empire - Page 267 1139502131 Claire Cochrane - 2011 "... was part of the trajectory that would culminate in 2002 with the setting up of the British Asian-led Asian Theatre School."Liz Tomlin British Theatre Companies: 1995-2014: Mind the Gap, Kneehigh ... 1408177307 - 2015 "... groups of young people supported by Peshkar Productions in Oldham and the Asian Theatre School (later Freedom Studios), under the auspices of Red Ladder in Bradford." preparing productions including the play Silent Cry by Madani Younis

presented at the Theatre Royal, York (2004).[http://www.britishtheatreguide.info/reviews/silentcry-rev Silent Cry review]

In 2011, it ran a play called Promised Land, an adaptation of Anthony Clavane's book about Leeds United.{{cite web | url=http://www.southyorkshiretimes.co.uk/lifestyle/actors-wanted-to-star-in-new-leeds-united-drama-1-4375829 | title=Actors wanted to star in new Leeds United drama | work=South Yorkshire Times | date=23 March 2012 | accessdate=23 March 2012}}

Today the company:

• tours nationally
• produces performance for the Annual Emerge Festival{{Citation needed|date=March 2012}} and Garforth Arts Festival{{cite web | url=http://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/news/latest-news/top-stories/east-leeds-focus-on-garforth-arts-festival-1-4311196 | title=East Leeds: Focus on Garforth Arts Festival | work=Yorkshire Evening Post | date=5 March 2012 | accessdate=23 March 2012 | author=Robinson, Paul}}
• Runs the Red Grit, Actor Training programme

Red Ladder's Arts Council funding will cease from April 2015. In response to a fundraising campaign to save the company, author David Peace has donated the theatre rights to his novel The Damned Utd.{{cite news|title=David Peace's Damned United donation boosts theatre company|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-29613817|accessdate=14 October 2014|work=BBC News|date=14 October 2014}}