Polka is giving away a total of 9,000 school tickets this academic year!
Curtain-Up! is a subsidised ticket scheme that allows Polka to give free tickets to school groups who face barriers that make it harder to access live theatre. The majority of the children that attend Curtain Up! shows have never been to the theatre before. Curtain Up! has been running at Polka for over 20 years and we enable at least 2,000 Primary School Children to attend each year. With special thanks to The Garek Trust, we are now able to give away 9,000 school tickets for this academic year!
The growth of this scheme is in response to the lasting impact of Covid, as we have noticed our schools struggling financially and organisationally to bring children to our brand-new space. Alongside our flexible booking policies, we aim to remove the financial barrier for schools to attend by offering free tickets.
We aim to ensure that all children have access to live theatre to ensure a whole generation of children don’t miss out on these vital experiences.
Curtain Up! is open to state and special schools who meet one or more of the following criteria:
- Have more than 30% of their students who are eligible for free school meals
- Have more than 40% of pupils for whom English is an additional language
- Have a large number of children who have refugee status
- Are a special school, or a SEN/ARP unit within a mainstream school, who face financial barriers to accessing theatre
- Find it difficult to give their students opportunities to experience the arts
Participating schools receive:
- Free tickets to a show for a class, year group or key stage
- After-show talk with show creatives
- Up to £200 subsidy for coach travel
- Resources linking to the show to support continued creative learning in the classroom
Any queries, please contact the Curtain Up! team below.
How to apply
To apply for Curtain Up! tickets, please fill out the application form by clicking ‘Fill in the form’ below. Before you complete our application form, we recommend that you browse our upcoming productions to see what would best suit your group.
Access
We are committed to making Polka accessible and inclusive to everyone. If your group would benefit from a Relaxed, Captioned or BSL performance, please let us know. There may be additional access performance dates available outside of those listed below.
Upcoming Curtain Up! Performances:
Year 1 to Year 3
Friday 11th October – 1:30 pm
Applications Close: Friday 27th September
Year 1 to Year 7
Wednesday 8th January – 1:45 pm
Thursday 9th January – 1:45 pm
Friday 10th January – 10:15 am
Friday 10th January – 1:45 pm (BSL Interpreted)
Friday 17th January – 10:15 am
Friday 17th January – 1:45 pm
Applications Close: Tuesday 19th November
EYFS and Reception
Wednesday 8th January – 1:15 pm
Thursday 9th January – 1:15 pm
Wednesday 15th January – 1:15 pm
Thursday 16th January – 1:15 pm
Applications Close: Tuesday 19th November
Year 5 to Year 9
This year, we are thrilled to offer a subsidised schools tour of Romeo and Juliet, open to schools in Greater London who fit the Curtain Up! criteria. For more information and to apply, head to the schools tour page.
Applications Close: Friday 20th December
We continue to announce Curtain Up performances throughout the year. To stay in the loop, sign up to our mailing list here and click ‘Schools’ as your preference.
“The students were absolutely blown away by how amazing the show was. About 70% of the students had never been to the theatre before and so it is fabulous to know that this experience has now been given to them hopefully to help encourage a further love of the arts. The whole theme and messages from the show about how to love yourself, promoting self esteem, positivity and being kind were excellent. The students loved the characters, the story and the singing. They have not stopped talking about this experience!”
“Absolutely faultless from start to finish. The staff, the booking, even dealing with us being a pain changing dates, everyone and everything was wonderful. We have never had such a smooth, welcoming and easy trip. Only 37 of our group of 76 had ever been to the theatre and you made it a memorable experience for all our newbie theatre goers.”
“I just wanted to thank you for our tickets yesterday. All the children had an utterly amazing time at the theatre, many had never been to the cinema let alone the theatre and some were even excited about their first train journey! They really engaged with the performance and got stuck into the Q&A as well. Please also thank your staff on the day who managed our large group so well and made us feel very welcome and accommodated. Wherever the funding source came from to allow us to give the children this experience it was very well spent, will have made a huge impact on our children and will be an opportunity they will treasure for a long time.”
We want to continue to reach at least 9,000 children per year through Curtain Up! in Merton, Croydon, Wandsworth and other surrounding boroughs, and we’ll be continuing to fundraise the make that happen. We want to thank all our committed current Curtain Up! supporters:
The D’Oyly Carte Charitable Trust
Enterprise Arts Trust
The Greenslade Family Foundation
Alf and Hilda Leivers Charity Trust
The TK Maxx & Homesense Foundation
The Doris Pacey Charitable Trust
Christina Smith Foundation
The Topinambour Trust
Unity Theatre Trust
Usborne Publishing Ltd
The Barbara Whatmore Charitable Trust
Wimbledon District Nursing and Midwifery Benevolent Society
A special thank you to:
The Garek Trust
The Ernest Hecht Charitable Foundation