In January 2025, the Montgomery Theatre and Arts Centre joined Sheffield Theatres’ family of venues. As well as an arts centre for children, families and community groups, the Montgomery houses local communities’ amateur dramatic productions. This year, Splinters Theatre Group staged their version of Everybody’s Talking About Jamie; a special home-grown show which began life on the Crucible stage in 2017 before taking the West End by storm, playing overseas and returning for multiple nation-wide tours, plus enjoying an international feature film release in 2021.

2025 provides a full circle moment for this production, its renown now seeing an amateur dramatic production staged only 160 metres from where the original production first began.

We opened up our doors this year and created a new space for interaction and creativity for the people of Sheffield. Coinciding with our autumn production Dancing at Lughnasa, we hosted Dancing in the Square; a family-friendly dance event in Tudor Square with local performance groups moving and grooving in the last of the summer sun. Free to attend, 150 dancers from the local community displayed incredible Irish dancing, Salsa, Bollywood and Belly-dance, Flamenco, Charleston and more, entertaining over 800 audience members, alongside a delicious outdoor BBQ.

For Christmas, we hosted Singing in the Square, alongside A Christmas Carol in the Crucible, where 9 choirs made up of 180 singers serenaded the city as we came together for festive favourites and cosy carols – accompanied by mince pies and mulled wine!

In 2025, even more students and young people with an interest in arts and culture came though our doors to learn more and ignite their creativity, with projects created by our Creative Engagement team. An important phase of this work includes Sheffield Theatres Youth Theatre, comprising of 50 young people aged 8 – 17 who have joined us for weekly performance skills sessions since May. The participants have worked on developing A Play in A Week 2025, performed as part of Together Festival.

A few of the STYT members reflected on their time at the sessions so far:

‘I’ve never been scared of spiders, but I have always been scared of talking in front of people. Now I come to STYT, and I talk in front of people and I can’t believe it.’ STYT 8-12s member

‘Being someone who wasn’t born in this country, being in STYT gave me belonging and helped me to make friends, I've found it hard to make friends in other places but here I am truly myself.’ STYT 12-17s member

‘I’ve always been the outcast but with STYT I don’t feel like that. Being someone who can struggle to communicate their feelings or understand feelings, being part of STYT and understanding how acting works has helped me. I don’t have to mask my true self – it feels good!’ STYT 12 – 17s member

‘Before STYT I had stage fright and now, after lots of practising, I feel so confident to perform and my dream is to perform on the Crucible stage in front of a big audience.’ STYT 8-12s

For schools in the local area, our teams supported students with a project in response to our production of Dancing at Lughnasa. 179 young people from across 6 local schools and colleges performed their new work

Teachers comments on the project:

‘It was another wonderful project, full of fantastic opportunities for our young people. Thank you for all the hard work that went into making this possible.’

‘The response project has been an excellent addition to our college, giving us precise and delicate ways to become involved within these professional projects.’

As well as response project, we’ve welcomed over 600 students through our Unlocking scheme, delving deeper into four Sheffield Theatres productions this year. And, across Mercia Trust’s four Primary Schools, over 1200 students participated in workshops and/or performances with Sheffield Theatres throughout 2025.

At this year's UK Theatre Awards, Jack Holden was awarded Best Performance in a Play for KENREX, our co-production with Aria Entertainment, whilst Pig Heart Boy- co-produced with Children’s Theatre Partnership and Unicorn Theatre - won Best Show for Children and Young People.

Meanwhile, at the UK Pantomime Association Awards, Snow White, our 2024-2025 co-production with Evolution Productions, took home the award for Best Pantomime (over 900 seats), whilst Marc Pickering - who starred in the show as Herman the Henchman - won Best Supporting Artist.

In 2025, we celebrated five years of talent development at The Bank! The Bank opened in November 2019, a signifier of our expanding commitment to local theatre makers. Located adjacent to the Crucible, The Bank is a creative space for local artists and theatre makers to develop work, skills, collaborations and careers with the support of Sheffield Theatres.

A few former supported artists shared their experience of developing at The Bank:

“Having that support really gave me the confidence that the idea was worth it, I’m worth it as an artist, and there’s people behind it to say ‘we do want to see what happens with that.”

“I had no idea how to get into other areas of theatre, and just being around people who are so attentive has been such an amazing way to expand my own experience.”

“I feel more safe applying to things because I know that it’s being received by someone who is going to think about me - even if it’s a no for this particular opportunity - and know I’m not just a resource to be used up, I’m part of something they want to invest in, even if it’s not right now.”

This year, we welcomed nearly 900 more members to our Centre Stage and Prestige schemes!

Our theatres are for everyone in our city and beyond and, as a registered charity, support from members is an essential part of delivering that commitment. In return for their commitment to us, members receive priority access to special events and insights online, as well as the benefits of ticket discounts and early access to upcoming shows as they go on sale. For theatre lovers, it’s a great way to get closer to the magic and to support the industry. Thanks to all our members, new and returning!

This year alone, Sheffield Theatres co-productions were playing in 17 cities across the UK, while overseas, one of our most loved productions, Life of Pi, set sail to captivate audiences in Asia, performing across Mainland China, Macau, and Taiwan.

KENREX, which opened in autumn 2024, transferred in 2025 to reach audiences in Southwark, London, before a further run in the West End this Christmas.

Pig Heart Boy performed in London and Sheffield, before touring to Liverpool, Salford, Coventry, Wolverhampton, Norwich, Newcastle, Poole, Blackpool, Northampton, Canterbury and Leicester.

Consumed opened in Coventry, before premiering at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and playing in Sheffield, Leeds, and Guildford. In Spring 2026, the production moves to Belfast and London.

Dancing at Lughnasa opened in the Crucible before moving to the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester for the second half of its run.

Within our organisation, our teams have spent time on multiple training courses this year, including: Mental Health First Aid, Gender Awareness, Unconscious Bias, Fundamentals of Allyship, Equality, Diversity & Inclusion, Gender Identity and Expression, Neurodiversity Awareness and more.

With all the time and commitment it takes for our teams to create magic onstage, our Health and Wellbeing group offers various activities that staff across all departments can get involved with when they need a moment to down tools. These include yoga and Zumba sessions, staff quizzes and games nights, coffee and cake mornings, group walks to explore the city at lunchtimes and festive wreath-making in December!

Lighting is so important to theatres – it’s one of the key tools we use to tell stories on stage. In 2025, Sheffield Theatres was awarded £98k of funding from the Low Carbon Community and Cultural Project through the UK Government’s Shared Prosperity Fund. With this grant, we kick-started a huge project to install new LED lighting in our largest theatres; including new lights in the Front of House and backstage areas of the Crucible, and backstage in the Lyceum.

Approximately 300 new light fittings were installed, enabling an estimated annual saving of 31,877 kWh in energy – which is equivalent to 45 thousand km of driving.

Not only does this improve our financial savings, but it reduces the carbon footprint of the theatre and is an important step towards becoming a greener organisation.

This summer, we had lot of fun with two huge community festivals: Launchpad Festival and Together Festival.

Launchpad Festival – our interactive creative showcase made by and for adults with learning disabilities and/or Autism - welcomed over 400 attendees over the two-day event, including almost 100 participants in workshops and over 200 visitors to the interactive sensory room. Presented over the weekend were 2 accessible creative dance workshops, 2 original performance pieces, audio work and poetry, a dance performance, a new girl group musical, an improvised collaboration and even a DJ party!

A few of the participants shared their feelings after the event:

'You wanted it to be a festival and it very much was, giving memories to hundreds of people with learning disabilities and their families and carers'

'From the moment we arrived at the theatre we were made so welcome by everyone. The team involved with Launchpad could not have looked after us any better for the time we were there, everyone's support needs were considered. Being able to dance on the stage at the Crucible was amazing'

'still over the moon with how well everyone did in the performance! Thank you so much for all the help and support’

Together Festival was a vibrant celebration of community spirit, bringing together people far and wide from Sheffield. Nearly 1500 people enjoyed various performances and workshops, with more taking part in a festival parade and discovering a creative exhibition, with festivities spilling out on to Tudor Square for passers-by stopping to enjoy entertainment on our outdoor stage too.

Those who were part of Together festival said:

‘Getting to profile the work on the front of the Crucible building was a real privilege. Thousands of people saw these women looking powerful, proud and happy in front of the building and on our Exhibition reel.’

'Thank you once again for the opportunity to be part of the celebration with the United Women Affiliation group. It was a real pleasure to contribute to such a joyful and meaningful event.’

'It was such an amazing moment for the children to describe the love that they have for their parents in a creative way and express themselves using art. I wish to have more opportunities like this in the future as I enjoyed the session so much. Also a big thank you to the staff who organised everything.'

This autumn, as part of our Artistic Director Elizabeth Newman's ambition to develop work from within the city, we were delighted to welcome four new associate companies to work alongside us.

Receiving access to resources, working space, equipment and creative input, the four Sheffield-based creative practitioners and theatre makers are Forced Entertainment, Roots Mbili Theatre, Stand & Be Counted Theatre, and The Bare Project.

We’re excited to see what the future holds in our relationship with the associate companies, and to take – in the words of Elizabeth: “this significant step in our journey to make Sheffield Theatres a true creative home - one that reflects and celebrates the extraordinary talent of this city.”

In September, 29 incredible runners took part in the Sheffield 10k to help raise money for Sheffield Theatres Trust. As a charity, lots of our funding comes from donations, so we were incredibly grateful to all those who ran in support of Sheffield Theatres.

One participant summed up why they wanted to raise money:

“Children need to be exposed to theatre and the arts as often as is possible and that's why I'm running, to encourage the next generation and open up new opportunities for young people to be in those kind of spaces."

All the donations raised from our runners and walkers went towards supporting our work with children and young people, developing confidence through creativity, sparking imaginations and nurturing the talent of the future.