About CPT

For more than 30 years, we’ve been one of the UK’s most consistent champions of early-career and underrepresented artists – offering not just a stage, but the mentoring, resources, and community they need to build lasting careers. We programme urgent political voices, the best of the industry’s new work, and good nights out that bring audiences and artists together.

In the past year alone, CPT supported 122 artists, 65% of them in the first five years of their careers.  Our impact is visible in the artists who began with us and are now shaping the worldwide theatre landscape, and in the new commissions developed here that are now touring across the UK and internationally.  Our artist support translates directly into public impact: we reach audiences that much of the industry continues to underserve, including 23% Global Majority, 49% LGBTQIA+, and 58% first-time visitors in 2024/25.

Under the leadership of Artistic Director and Joint CEO Rio Matchett, we’ve launched a bold new artist development strategy rooted in equity, sustainability and long-term change. The programme nurtures artists from their very first ideas through to ambitious productions ready to reach wider audiences. It combines free space, mentoring and development support with commissions and co-productions – ensuring that artists are not only able to make exceptional work, but to sustain viable creative careers.

We’re shifting away from box office splits, which place financial risk on artists, to guaranteed fees for all performances in our seasons – ensuring financial stability from the outset. Projects are designed with integrated access in mind, including BSL, captioning, relaxed performances and audio description – not as add-ons, but embedded in the creative process. We strive for artistic excellence, believing that the best artist development is rooted in risk, rigour, and kindness.

CPT is more than a theatre: it is part of an interconnected ecology of artist development, youth work and community engagement. Camden Youth Theatre – run in partnership with New Diorama Theatre – is the only free-to-access youth theatre in our borough, giving young people a space to develop skills, confidence and leadership, and to see themselves reflected on stage. From our Local Steering Group to workshops for children, families and residents, we believe that theatres are civic spaces that everyone should feel ownership of.

Together, these strands form a joined-up approach to diversifying not only who makes theatre, but who sees it, who leads it, and who feels it belongs to them.

The CPT MANIFESTO

1 - Hearts starve as well as bodies. The right to expression, to entertainment, to imagination, is a human right. Art and culture must be accessible to all, not luxuries reserved for the privileged.

2 - Risk + Rigour = Excellence. CPT has a duty to take risks where the mainstream cannot. Progress is made at the fringes. Fringe artists should be supported to push boundaries without fear, because they are the ones driving cultural evolution.

3 - Financial insecurity stifles creativity and enhances privilege. All CPT artists will be paid fairly for their work. We must ensure artists are compensated justly, rejecting exploitation under the guise of passion. 

4 - Theatre and politics cannot be separated. It is the sacred duty of artists to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable. Theatre must speak truth to power; we refuse to be censored. Artists have a responsibility to engage with social issues, provoke thought and change, commit to nuance, and contribute to political discourse.

5 - Decolonising the arts, education, and our minds is crucial to the future of humanity. We recognise the ongoing impact of colonialism on cultural narratives and power structures. CPT is working towards dismantling exclusionary systems, and reimagining theatre to be more inclusive and just.

6 - There are two types of people  - disabled, and pre-disabled. We owe it to ourselves and our futures to make art accessible to everyone. Accessibility both on and off-stage is universal and urgent, not just a niche concern.

7 -  Audiences are not just ticket buyers. Audiences are our community, our purpose, our guiding star. We owe our audiences excellence. Our audiences can trust what to expect from us. We will give our audiences transparency, respect, and consistent quality.

8 - On a global scale, there is no scarcity of resource, money or materials. There is a scarcity of imagination, and a scarcity of hope. Theatres are training grounds for possibility and imagination. CPT will be a space that nurtures creativity and hope that the world could be different.

9 - Joy is political. Laughter, music and fun are acts of resistance in oppressive contexts. Human connection and joy can have transformative social power.

10 - Camden, People and Theatre are worth fighting for. 

#FightForFringe