Join the Pivot Club
Central students first launched the Pivot Club in the early 1900s with the aim of raising money for talented students without financial means. Central’s founder, Elsie Fogerty, was the President of the club and members, including Central alumni Lord Laurence Olivier and Dame Peggy Ashcroft, ‘pivoted’ around her. The club hosted a number of special performances and readings for patrons to raise funds for scholarships and at its height, the club had over 200 members. The original club was disbanded at the outbreak of World War II, but in 2011 Central was inspired to re-launch the Pivot Club in light of Government funding cuts to Higher Education.
Michael Grandage, Central's President, says "I owe everything to my training at Central; it gave me the expert knowledge, breadth of experience and confidence to start my career." Today, Central continues to give students an excellent foundation for their theatre careers for the reasons outlined in the Why Support Us section.
Friends and supporters joining the Pivot Club will be helping to ensure that exceptional students can continue to benefit from the Central experience and to help safeguard the future of the School.
As a member of the the Pivot Club, you will become a significant part of life at Central and a vital benefactor of its students.
Pivot Club member privileges per annum
Pivot Club Friend: £50+ (or £4 per month on Direct Debit)
Pivot Club Friends will become part of the Central community, receiving termly mailings of the Events Calendar and bi-annual copies of the Central Newsletter, allowing them to keep up-to-date with all that goes on at the School. Pivot Club Friends will also be publically acknowledged for their support on the Central Donors webpage.
What does your support mean to Central?
£50 could be used by the library to purchase three new paperback play scripts, or by the wardrobe department to buy a restoration period shirt for use in student productions.
Pivot Club Circle: £250+ (or £20 per month on Direct Debit)
In addition to the above, Pivot Club Circle members will receive invitations to exhibitions and events across the school (including our design and craft shows, theatre festivals and industry speaker events). Members will also be invited to attend our regular pre- and post-show receptions, with opportunities to meet the cast and crew.
What does your support mean to Central?
£250 could enable Central to buy one follow spot lamp for its Embassy Theatre or allow us to employ a leading industry professional to provide a one-day student master class. £250 could also be used to form part of a bursary to assist a student facing financial hardship.
Pivot Club Stalls: £1,000+ (or £80 per month on Direct Debit)
Members joining at Pivot Club Stalls level will become part of our exclusive group of supporters, receiving invitations to private internal events and behind-the-scenes opportunities, including access to our annual, invitation only, acting showcases.
What does your support mean to Central?
£1,000 would significantly contribute towards our student scholarship fund and help Central to continue to attract and select the best students regardless of their financial situation. This level of support could also contribute towards an academic development grant or allow our technical workshop to purchase additional state-of-the-art equipment.
Donors wishing to make a gift of over £2,500 will receive a variety of tailored privileges and will play a leading role in the future of Central and its students. Please contact Meg Ryan, Head of Major Gifts, on meg.ryan@cssd.ac.uk or +44 (0)20 7449 1636 to discuss your donation further.
To join the Pivot Club please visit our How to Donate page. To discuss your donation in more detail, please contact the Individual Giving team on +44 (0)20 7559 3991.
Benefits correct as of August 2012. As well as supporting student scholarships, money raised from the Pivot Club may also be used to support various areas of need throughout the School.Why I support Central
"I have become a Pivot because I had a front row seat witnessing what Central students achieve. For almost five years I was head of Alumni Relations at Central and it gave me the opportunity to get to know hundreds of alumni, young and old, across all the disciplines. I grew to admire and respect so many and what they were giving to all of us. The world of performance works in many and often deeper levels: It entertains and uplifts, it can help us analyse our own situations, it makes us think, it can inspire, it can heal and it can reach where politics cannot, to challenge and to change.
What is so important about Central it that it achieves even more than producing some of the world’s finest actors and the technical artists that make performance possible. The applied theatre alumni have shown me that they have a real (and sometimes life changing) impact in schools, youth groups, in places of social deprivation, in prisons, in hospitals and abroad in places of poverty or trauma. It seems to me that all this matters very much and I believe the world would be worse off if it could not happen. For this reason I have become a member of the Pivot Club."
Caroline Clark, Pivot Circle Member