Home News Birmingham News
Mac closes for refurbishment
ONE of Birmingham’s premier theatre and entertainment venues signed off in style ahead of a multi-million pound refurbishment that will result in its closure for 18 months.
The mac, in Cannon Hill Park, Edgbaston, is to undergo a £13.6 million facelift that will include a new three-storey gallery.
It is due to reopen in Autumn 2009, with other improvements including a new performing arts studio with room for 150, a refitted main theatre, and refurbished toilets, bar and cafe. The mac closed at 6.30pm yesterday at the end of two days of free events involving film screenings, street theatre and puppetry.
Nearly 200 people will lose their jobs, although managers said it was hoped that staff would return to work once the building has been transformed.
Mac spokeswoman Helen Annetts said: "We decided to make the final weekend a riot of festival events, many of them free, to enable lots of people to take away another happy memory of the place."
About 1,000 people turned up for the final day yesterday.
Entertaining the children was The Flying Buttresses, an interactive puppetry show which went out and about among the crowds.
Site Tools
Copyright and Trade Mark Notice © 2009 owned by or licensed to Trinity Mirror Midlands Limited. Birmingham Mail™ is a trade mark of Trinity Mirror Midlands Limited. Please read our Terms and Conditions and Privacy Statement before using this site.