Really bad decision
Taken from Andrew's blog:
"The Arts Council Yorkshire yesterday announced its intention to completely withdraw funding from the National Student Drama Festival. This is a catastrophically short-sighted, wrong-headed blunder."
Absolutely.
Check out the link to Andrew's blog above for more information, but basically this is an act of crazy vandalism. There's a Guardian blog about the impact NSDF can have here, and there's a petition to sign here if you think that the Harold Pinters, Simon Russell Beales, Stephen Frys, Meera Syals, Tim Wests, Roger Michels, Pete Postlethwaites and many, many more actors, directors, writers, and the crucial, usually invisible technical and design people of the future deserve some support. And if you couldn't give a stuff about theatre but are only interested in money and the whole "why should we support these people" type of arguments, a report commissioned by the Arts Council in 2004 found that theatre contributed at least £2.6billion to the UK economy every year (and the report itself says that's a conservative figure). And how is theatre going to carry on contributing billions if the up and coming generations aren't supported?
What's going on at the moment? Regional theatre seems to be disappearing at the rate of knots, and now student thetare is being attacked too. How are we supposed to have a thriving theatrical culture in the future if the roots and branches are pulverised now?
"The Arts Council Yorkshire yesterday announced its intention to completely withdraw funding from the National Student Drama Festival. This is a catastrophically short-sighted, wrong-headed blunder."
Absolutely.
Check out the link to Andrew's blog above for more information, but basically this is an act of crazy vandalism. There's a Guardian blog about the impact NSDF can have here, and there's a petition to sign here if you think that the Harold Pinters, Simon Russell Beales, Stephen Frys, Meera Syals, Tim Wests, Roger Michels, Pete Postlethwaites and many, many more actors, directors, writers, and the crucial, usually invisible technical and design people of the future deserve some support. And if you couldn't give a stuff about theatre but are only interested in money and the whole "why should we support these people" type of arguments, a report commissioned by the Arts Council in 2004 found that theatre contributed at least £2.6billion to the UK economy every year (and the report itself says that's a conservative figure). And how is theatre going to carry on contributing billions if the up and coming generations aren't supported?
What's going on at the moment? Regional theatre seems to be disappearing at the rate of knots, and now student thetare is being attacked too. How are we supposed to have a thriving theatrical culture in the future if the roots and branches are pulverised now?
posted by Sal at
11:04 pm
1 Comments:
Apparently all government/lottery funding (same thing if you ask me) is to be directed at sportsy/outdoorsy activities - or at least that's how it seems to me. The Shakespeare North project in my home town of Prescot (near Liverpool) was looking for a special slice of Lottery fudning - the three "winners" all involved regeneration of some outdoor space (one including a large statue of a horse I understand) so that the locals have somewhere to get their exercise. All well and good but...
Perhaps, with 2012 coming up, The People must be encouraged to get outside and get fit. No sitting around in theatres on our backsides, like middle class couch potatoes. Except that it's pointless exercising the body without exercising the mind and the imagination. Isn't it?
Amanda
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