About Us

Our mission is to invent the future of theatre.

To find out more read our Vision for BAC and the building.

View our 2010-11 annual report here:

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National newspapers state that BAC is ‘Britain’s most influential theatre’ (The Guardian), ‘a dream factory generating the theatre of tomorrow’ (The Times) and ‘definitely on the map of cultural powerhouses’ (Daily Telegraph). This is due to a series of innovations like Scratch. Scratch enables artists to test ideas in front of an audience and listen to their feedback.

The birthplace of Jerry Springer the Opera and the first London venue to present Punchdrunk, BAC nurtures talented emerging artists and is renowned for making some of the most cutting-edge new work in the UK. We work with artists who question traditional forms of theatre and make work that often doesn’t start life with a script. Theatre that blurs genres, challenges our view of the world and thrives on experiment. We present performances across 70 rooms in our old town hall: in theatre spaces, offices, down in the basement and up in the attic. We also have events that spill out of the building and onto the street: in schools, supermarkets, laundrettes, on boating lakes or online.

Our Get Involved programme offers people of all ages and backgrounds creative opportunities to take part in the theatre making process. You might be an artist looking to test an idea, a teacher looking to develop your practice or perhaps you're considering your first steps in choosing theatre as a career - check out our Get Involved section to see the different ways you can develop your ideas and skills at BAC.  

Housed in a Grade II* listed old town hall, BAC is a place where artists, audience, participants and staff can play a role in inventing the future of theatre.

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Battersea Arts Centre lives inside what used to be Battersea Town Hall. The population of Battersea Borough was growing at an unprecedented rate in the late 1800s and people needed a new place to meet and conduct local democracy. The Town Hall was built in 1893 by Edward Mountford.  Soon after the council moved into their new home on Lavender Hill they adopted the motto ‘Not for me, not for you, but for us’. 

Inside the building the grand public spaces are balanced with simple offices where the business of running a London borough was carried out.  The entrance foyer has a mosaic floor decorated with bees, which are said to represent the democracy and industry of the hive, the double B’s of Battersea Borough and possibly the early history of the area as fields of lavender. The Grand Hall was designed for ‘recreative entertainments of a high class for the people’.  It hosted early silent pictures, astronomy lectures with lantern projections and organ recitals. It is still used today for weddings, craft fairs and performances. Audiences were able to enjoy its' splendour during Punchdrunk and BAC's The Masque of the Red Death and Kneehigh's Don John.

The building has always been a place of congregation, hosting public meetings, celebrations and protests for over 125 years.  Battersea was renowned for its radical politicians and was a focal point in the early days of the Trades Union movement, Independent Labour Party and the campaign for Women’s Suffrage. Christabel and Emmeline Pankhurst and Charlotte Despard presided over meetings in the Town Hall.  In 1913 Battersea elected John Archer, London’s first black Mayor.  Battersea’s council commissioned the first council housing estate and introduced a 48 hour working week in the borough.

In 1965 Battersea Borough was absorbed into Wandsworth and the building was threatened with demolition. Plans were drawn up by the new council to build a library and a swimming pool in its place.  A local campaign was formed to save the building, resulting in a Grade II* listing and a new community arts centre.  In 1980 Jude Kelly became the first Artistic Director.  Jude believed that when you are working in a space that has a human history, it is important to engage with that past and to treat the building with authenticity:

‘In an historical context your obligation is to pick up the ropes of the previous generation, where they have laid down ideas and struggled to change.  Your obligation is to keep that going.’  Jude Kelly

The building is still on a journey from Town Hall to 21st Century home for creativity. BAC’s environment continues to evolve, with each new artist who walks into the building and sees potential in the spaces and stories that they hold. 
 
You can read more about the current building development plans.

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Our programme is defined by our team of eight Producers who are committed to our mission to invent the future of theatre. Our approach to programming is rooted in our Scratch process which, over the ten years since its invention, has developed the work of thousands of theatre artists.

Every Producer goes out to see an enormous amount of work and share their thoughts at our weekly 'Seen and Met' meeting. There are also weekly Programming meetings which brainstorm ideas for future seasons of work and artists that we want to programme. The Jerwood Charitable Foundation partners BAC on a Producer Enrichment Programme that provides our producers with training and travel budgets, masterclasses and opportunities to develop their dramaturgy skills.

95% of the work that is programmed at BAC is new work that is made here. Sometimes we programme work that has been developed elsewhere but only when we think the work is exceptional and we are interested in working with that artist on something new in the future. Our team of producers works closely with artists on the development of their ideas, supporting them through the creative process and sorting out the practicalities involved in making a new piece of work.

Read more about how to get programmed at BAC.

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Chair: Roanne Dods

Board Members:

Michael Day – Chair of BAC Board
Sally O’Neil – Vice Chair of BAC Board, Enterprises Board Member, Chair of Finance and Business Development Group
Julie Molloy – BAC Board Member, Chair of Enterprises Board
Fiona Mactaggart MP – BAC Board Member, Chair of Development Council
Bruce Thompson – BAC Board Member, Enterprises Board Member
Carol Lake – BAC Board Member
Elizabeth Griffith – BAC Board Member
Cllr. Guy Senior – BAC Board Member
Joan O’Pray MBE – BAC Board Member
Nicola Thorold – BAC Board Member
Cllr. Paul Ellis – BAC Board Member
Rohan Silva – BAC Board Member
Harun Morrison – BAC Board Member

Registered as Battersea Arts Centre, a company limited by guarantee
Company No. 1569115 VAT No. 744 4895 94
Charity No. 282857

BAC Enterprises Ltd is a wholly owned trading subsidiary of BAC, a registered charity (282857) and company limited by guarantee (1569115)

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