This podcast is part of a series of case studies in which we speak to small business owners. Find out about the challenges and advantages of owning your own business, and pick up some advice on how to get started. Founded in 2008 by a small group of actors, The Bear Pit Theatre is a voluntary organisation based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. It aims to provide a venue for, and bring together, the different artistic and amateur groups in the town. Read the full case study here - www.gov.uk/government/case-stu…es/bear-pit-theatre   Transcript Jocelyn Keedwell : Hello and welcome to the latest case study podcast. I'm Jocelyn. I'm from the company's Health Communications team, and I'm here today at The Bear Pit theatre with Pamela Hicks, David Mears and David Derrington all directors. Hello all, thank you very much for letting us in. Just wondering if you can maybe tell me a little bit about The Bear Pit Theatre and how you guys started?   Pamela: David and I, we got together at the very beginning with another friend and the reason being that we feared that what is now the play house next door was going to be shut down. There was going to be nowhere for amateurs to perform in the Stratford-upon-Avon. So we set about  trying to find a venue.   David Mears: So that was in 2008. We started to have those conversations and ten years later we're here now in The Bear Pit Theatre. We felt it was really important that in a town that celebrates Shakespeare there should be a venue for local community groups and amateur theatre makers to produce work.   JK: So it was very much aimed at community groups and community theatre rather than some more established companies?    DM: Absolutely and before we started to find spaces and talk about setting up a venue we looked at lots of other community spaces. We did a tour all around London visited the Likes of Questers. We were very envious that the Talisman and The Priory theatre in Kenilworth had not one but two community-led venues. There's the Loft theatre in Lemmington and we're thinking well, hang on a minute. Why isn't there a community venue in Stratford-upon-Avon that’s in the heart of Warwickshire?    CH:So you said your first formed in 2008.  Was it yourselves was there more people involved? Is it volunteer-based kind of thing?   David Derrington: It started with sort as they said with two things in mind really. One was to try and act as a sort of an embracing group for the other companies because we were all aware that all these people did not have a voice in Stratford. I mean so many of the theatres elsewhere are commissioned, run by, helped by local authorities and that sort of thing. In Stratford you've got the RSC. What else do you want? And so that was one of the things to try and do, to try and bring all these groups together. Perhaps we’ll come back to that and the second thing was to find the theatre. That's sort of where we were.    CH: So the actual theatre is based at the back of the United Reformed Church here in Stratford. So how did you find that space?   P: We were introduced to the then Minister here who, actually I think is a great thespian. He couldn't wait to have this space filled with actors and so he showed us around and said well,  ‘’I'm happy that you get the opportunity to perform here”, at that time the church hall was being used for badminton and yoga and line dancing and goodness knows what, but he sort of allocated us long weekends, so that we can put on the shows.    CH: So how did you transition then from being a long weekend space to being sort of a fully functioning theatre that you've developed and you've refurbished and you put a lot of time and effort into?   DM: It became quite clear that we couldn't continue as we were doing because it was a lot of time to set it all up. We'd be building a rake for our audience to sit on, we'd be building a set and then we'd have to clear it in a matter of hours so badminton could play the following