| The
Arts Council Debate - what do YOU value about
the arts?
Access
your inner activist and get campaigning...
This
article was originally published in The Writernet
Bulletin - they have kindly let us reproduce it...
The season of lobbying and consultation
is upon us. The Arts Council England is holding
a debate on public value - an opportunity to have
your say on the future of the arts: send a response
or join the debate online. ACE want to hear your
views on five key questions that they believe
should be the subject of a national debate:
What
do you value about the arts?
What
principles should guide public funding of the
arts today?
What
are the responsibilities of a publicly funded
arts organisation?
Should
members of the public be involved in arts funding
decisions?
Find
out more:
www.artscouncil.org.uk/artsdebate/
In the
spirit of airing views, via blogs or otherwise,
here I get on my soapbox on the subject of January's
debate on playwriting in The Guardian...
Perhaps it is just post-millennium
tension, but theatre's over-fascination with the
discovery of the new suggests to me a disconnection
from audiences as much as any voracious appetite
for the unknown.
Mark
Ravenhill's recently voiced arguments in The Guardian
around audiences connecting to the best work are
sound, excepting his deliberate provocation (viz
the League of Gentleman paraphrase) that the best
work is generated in London. What is needed is
a system that is flexible and mobile so that excellent
work can be generated from anywhere across the
UK (not just England, please) and can then have
a further life - or further lives...
Simon
Reade's robust riposte to what he perceives as
a slight on those making work outside London is
let down when he writes about future life for
work and his assertion that "the playwright..
like their (sic) audiences will know that the
reproduction is unlikely to be as good as the
original". This is a very partisan assumption
with no evidence to support it. The Verity Bargate
winner which met with lukewarm reception from
the critics, and was subsequently given a fabulous
production by an amateur company in Ipswich is
just the first example which comes to my mind
that gives the lie to Reade's assertion Of course
it is subjective - but that's the point.
Reade
advocates the German-speaking theatre system -
so that maverick directors are not faced with
the unexciting prospect, as he calls it, of rehashing.
I disagree. What's needed is fewer mavericks throwing
rattles out of prams because they have got wind
that their toys might be somehow second hand and
a refocusing on who the work is for. A future
life for work can take many forms... a second
production doesn't have to be second hand or second
rate...
Reade
highlights the possibilities for simultaneous
version of the same new play afforded in German
speaking theatres, but doesn't then explain how
the risk (or perceived risk) to gaining audiences
might be managed - a sensible reason he gives
for not transferring plays to his 600 seat main
house in Bristol for the Bust. The figures do
have to add up. But this simultaneity already
happens across the UK - both in the amateur sector
which annually through its umbrella bodies will
select a new play by an author such as John Godber
and stage dozens of productions - and also the
National Theatre's Connections programme, which
does something similar with new plays to be performed
by young people. So both participants and audiences
will engage...
Public
Value - one of Arts Council England's new policy
priorities - needs to look at how a range of audiences
connect to a range of work: homegrown, transfers,
co-productions and touring - in theatres, village
halls, sites specific, schools and elsewhere.
With the advent of the new strategic focus at
the heart of Arts Council England, perhaps now
we will see a rebalancing between strategic intervention
and free market commercialism. For I believe it
is this commercialism which is driving our obsession
with discovery and its cachet, and not public
value...
Perhaps
what is needed is the theatre equivalent of The
Big Read (no pun intended) - where national media
attention is brought significantly to bear on
10 contemporary classics by living playwrights.
Preferably a selection which represents the breadth
of talent that we so relentlessly churn through
in our appetite for the new. This would aim to
stimulate audience engagement and still provide
enough of a creative challenge to enthuse even
the most jaded of mavericks.
Jonathan,
Sarah, Elizabeth and Kelly
www.writernet.org.uk
Originally
Published in Writernet Bulletin, February 2007
Special
Features Archive
January
2006 - 'Happy Birthday Script'
April
2006 - The Script/Raw Edge Monologue Competition
winners
June
2006 - Ian Kennedy on writing for the BBC Radio
Drama 'Silver Street.
September
2006 - playwright, Alan Pollock, on the tough
choices writers have to face.
December
2006 - Brian Langtry on his journey via pop and
folk bands to writing and producing musical theatre.
January
2007 - Katw Wyvill talks about 'Going Potty'
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