School to sponsor Theatre Royal’s ‘Snow White’ pantomime for 2023/2024

The Theatre Royal has set up a new partnership with Finborough School who will be this year’s pantomime sponsor for “Snow White”.

The school is passionate about the performing arts and believe that learning music, dance and drama has wide-reaching benefits for young adults, providing them with the tools to think creatively, innovate and appreciate diverse cultures and backgrounds.

Finborough is currently building a performing arts centre comprised of a state-of-the-art 200-seat capacity theatre, two dance studios, changing rooms and conference facilities. 

Its headteacher Steven Clark, said: “At Finborough our children are immersed in performing arts opportunities from their earliest beginnings in nursery at age two through to their emergence as exceptional young men and women at 18.

“The incredible power for performing arts to inspire and build the character needed for our children’s best lives is why we invest in such a rich vein of theatrical opportunities for our amazing students at Finborough. This partnership with the Theatre Royal in Bury St Edmunds is testament to our commitment to the performing arts and our belief in the power of culture to enrich the lives of our students and the wider community.”

The annual pantomime, which runs from Sunday, November 24, to Sunday, December 14, is seen by over 24,000 people with many attending year after year.

Over the run of “The Legend of Robin Hood”, it issued 5,035 school tickets to schools across East Anglia, entertaining and inspiring young minds across the counties.

Theatre Royal’s in-house pantomimes include a young cast of local children from in and around Bury St Edmunds, many of whom visit the pantomime and are inspired to audition for the following year.

This new sponsorship of Theatre Royal’s pantomime, “Snow White”, provides a fantastic level of support for the organisation and its work, strengthening the existing much valued and long-term sponsorship support it already receives from businesses across the region. 

Emma Suckling, head of development at the theatre, said: “We are delighted to begin working with Finborough School as they sponsor our legendary, award-nominated pantomime. This will be a strong partnership, linking the two organisations closely so that we can uniquely support one another.

“We’re enormously grateful to Finborough School for this investment in the pantomime, our biggest annual in-house production. Our sponsors are hugely important to us. Theatre Royal is a registered charity, heavily reliant upon private support and income through sponsorship is crucial to enable us to remain financially robust and continue to offer all that we do for the community of Bury St Edmunds and West Suffolk.”