Does Labour want the arts sector to collapse? – this week in Your Views

Once again, Lisa Nandy is highlighting arts provision to children and young people, delivering art to communities and areas of low arts provision (“Lisa Nandy: We will announce Arts Council England review chair imminently”), but not looking at the arts sector as (a) a significant employer of freelancers and PAYE practitioners, and with the theatres as delivery hubs, and (b) a huge generator of GDP. That all needs massively increased financing delivered through ACE if the whole subsidised arts sector is not to collapse.

Who does she think does all this delivering to schools, communities etc? We do – through freelance work, arts organisations and theatres – but we can’t keep doing it if we’ve all been forced to find alternative work because we can’t earn a living in the arts sector any more. No other area of British industry would be viewed in this way if it was on the verge of collapse. We can’t work for organisations and theatres if they’ve closed down due to lack of funding. This is either irrational, or Labour actively wants the creative sector to collapse.
Rina Vergano
Via thestage.co.uk

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What are the reasons for Central School’s woes?

This was caused, no doubt, by Labour’s national insurance hike for employers (“Royal Central drama school refuses to rule out compulsory job cuts”). So much for  the imaginary idea that Labour support the arts.
Oli Lewis
Via thestage.co.uk

Or perhaps the freezing of tuition fees for undergraduate programmes and the limits imposed on graduate visas for foreign students by previous UK governments have something to do with it?
Ben Furey
Via thestage.co.uk

Is it possible that we have too many theatre and performance schools in the UK?
Paul Dickinson
Via thestage.co.uk

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Relying on staff loyalty is no longer sustainable

I can see how the national insurance increase is putting a strain on the finances of small and mid-scale theatres (“Stephen Joseph Theatre mulls cutting back shows and community work after Budget”), but frankly, if a theatre can’t afford to be paying all of its staff at least a living wage, then I don’t believe it should continue to exist.

Too many venues rely on their staff’s love of the industry to bring skills and knowledge far beyond what they are being paid for, and it is no longer sustainable. Nor was it ever, really.

And often, it’s front-of-house and box-office staff who have the lowest salaries and yet are the public face of an organisation.
Kiri Baildon-Smith
Via thestage.co.uk

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The power of local theatre

This is an important article (“Lyn Gardner: Regional theatres are evolving with – and for – their communities”). Imagine what we could and would do if the brilliant engagement (and theatremaking) work many of us are doing was properly funded. My hope is this lengthy period of extreme belt-tightening and rethinking (remembering?) what regional theatre is for will be retained, but also be funded sensibly. The power of that would be enormous.
Martin Berry
Via thestage.co.uk

Hear, hear. Susan Croft’s Unfinished Histories exhibition Radical Rediscovery: Feminist Theatre in Britain 1969-1992, a new archival exhibition at London Performance Studios exploring the stories of the wealth of theatre companies, is a reminder of how ‘local’ some of this era’s companies were, reaching parts of the country seldom visited by larger commercial enterprises. It is well worth a visit.
Carole Woddis
Via thestage.co.uk