Skilled with your hands? There's a theatre role for you behind the scenes

Decline of drama at school prompts training drive for backstage work

- Vanessa Thorpe

The decline of drama as a school subject has had a serious knock-on effect on the live entertainment business.

While it is harder now for a budding star to imagine a stage career, the more immediate impact is on theatres' skills and craft departments.

The problem is a top priority for Indhu Rubasingham, two weeks into her high-profile job as artistic director at National Theatre. Today she and the NT's executive director, Kate Varah, are announcing a move to boost the supply of skilled workers across the country, from costume designers and makers to set creators and computer technicians.

"This is a fast-growing sector, but the scale of this problem is putting it all at risk. A nationwide training drive is the answer," Varah told the Observer. "Performing arts subjects have seen a 68% drop in student numbers, while the figures for those taking GCSEs have dropped by 47% and A-levels by 29%.

"The result is that young people are not even thinking of theatre as a viable industry, whatever kind of backstage work they might otherwise have gone into."

The NT is to fund expansion of its National Theatre Skills Centre over three years, with the help of a new and "significant" corporate partnership with Bank of America.