Theatre company helping mums stay in the spotlight

"It's so special to be given the opportunity to not choose between motherhood and career. It should be the norm," says Finetta Sidgwick.

She is a dancer and is 14 weeks pregnant. Thanks to a special theatre company in Essex, she is still taking to the stage.

The Rhiannon Faith Company (RFC) is paying for childcare and supporting performers with young families, including helping one dancer take her children on tour.

The Harlow-based company says practical support can help talented performers continue their careers without having to choose between work and family life.

But Parents in Performing Arts says more needs to be done across the industry, particularly for freelancers who struggle to find affordable childcare outside traditional hours.

Although RFC was set up in 2019, artistic director Rhiannon Faith has been paying to support performers since 2017 - when she was an independent choreographer.

Since then, she has helped seven mums and one dad.

Sidgwick has received support while rehearsing for Mary Mary, which premieres at Harlow Playhouse next April.

She says the company has provided practical and emotional support, including a pregnancy ball, time to rest and an understudy for performances and the tour.

"I felt that the position of performer was always going to be there, no matter how long my maternity leave was going to be," says the 32-year-old from Brighton, who has been in four other shows since joining RFC in 2021.

About one in five working women have missed out on having a professional job because they became mothers, according to research from the University of Essex.

Performer Shelley Ava Haden, 33, who joined RFC in 2018 and has been in three shows, says childcare is just as important to being able to work.

She has two young children, who were with her during rehearsals, and the company pays for her mother, Carole, to travel with them when she is on tour.

Haden, from the Midlands, is still breastfeeding, while her partner works full-time, meaning there would otherwise be little option for childcare.

"First of all, you just don't feel like a burden," she says.

"I couldn't have done it without the support, I would have had to say no to dance."

The company also provides accommodation with facilities suitable for a family and a childcare payment to recognise the work her mother is doing.

Alongside Sidgwick, Haden was supported by the theatre group while pregnant in 2023.

Faith says supporting performers with families is about retaining some of the most skilled people in the industry.

But she says smaller companies can struggle to afford the support without using their own reserves.

"People are putting off starting families to maintain their career in the arts, and really that's unspeakable," she says.

"If we don't make a ground-breaking shift in financial support for women who want to start families and work in the arts, then the biggest talent in the UK in our industry is going to disappear from our stages."

Without such a shift, she warns: "They're going to be erased from our stories, they're going to be erased off stages."

Parents in Performing Arts says companies are increasingly introducing measures such as flexible hours, job shares and schedules designed around school drop-offs and pick-ups.

But it says childcare remains one of the biggest barriers, particularly because around three quarters of people working in the performing arts are freelancers.

"You don't see the performer sitting there with a calculator going, 'Can I afford to work?'" says Cassie Raine, from Parents in Performing Arts.

"What people are having to do is make that choice all the time: do I continue my career, or do I care for my family?"

Rhiannon Faith says wider financial support is needed so smaller companies can offer similar help.

The BBC has contacted the Department for Culture, Media and Sport for comment.

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