13 April 2013
Posted in Theatre

Leading writers back campaign against theatre funding cuts

Over 60 of the UK's best-known writers and other theatrical professionals – including Sir Tom Stoppard, Michael Frayn, Caryl Churchill, Mike Leigh, Sir Richard Eyre and Vicky Featherstone – have signed an open letter to Culture Minister Ed Vaizey, urging him to take seriously a recent report into the threat to new British playwriting posed by the Government's latest round of spending cuts. 

The independent report, In Battalions, researched and written by playwright and Writers' Guild member Fin Kennedy, with support from Oxford University's Helen Campbell Pickford, drew on data from surveys sent to theatres across the country. The results showed venues having to cancel productions, produce fewer new plays, commission fewer writers, and cancel a whole host of creative research and development – from attachment programmes, to open access workshops, to new writer development schemes, to unsolicited script reading. 

As well as cuts closing down entry points to the profession, the report also identified a creeping culture of risk-aversion around new work, as financial instability takes hold. 

Theatre professionals contributing to the report voiced serious concerns about the diminishing opportunities for today's young playwrights to develop their talents and stressed the importance of theatre as the training ground for the TV, radio and film industries. All stand to lose a generation of talent, with writers from less privileged backgrounds particularly badly hit. 

The report was sent to Ed Vaizey's office on 12 February 2013  but its authors have yet to receive a response. 

The open letter to Mr Vaizey expresses disappointment with the Minister's public remarks, in particular a recent speech in which he said that to suggest there is any sort of crisis in the arts is 'rubbish' and 'scaremongering'. 

The letter reads: 'We believe the findings of In Battalions are to be taken seriously. They are representative of a wider trend within our industry. If the next generation of playwrights are not properly supported, this could seriously affect output in a few years’ time, and new plays are vital to the future health of British theatre – not to mention a driver of growth in the economy.'

Fin Kennedy, the report's author said: 'Ed Vaizey and the DCMS have had my report now for two months. That's as long as my researcher and I took to research and write it. We took the project on in our own time in good faith, and in response to comments made to me by Mr Vaizey himself, that Arts Council cuts were having "no effect". He offered to look over any evidence to the contrary, and even to raise it with the Arts Council if I could show there was a problem. I believe we have showed there's a problem, but Mr Vaizey seems unwilling to accept the evidence we have sent him. In an email to one concerned young writer he said: "There is no evidence of any impact on new writing." Anyone who's read my report will see that that's demonstrably untrue. We're still really keen to engage with Mr Vaizey about our ideas for how to fix this problem - he's our Culture Minister after all - but we really do need him to take this issue seriously and to engage with us, as he promised he would.'

The open letter calls on Mr Vaizey to undertake his own research, ending: 'If [your] response is still that there is "no evidence” then we would ask that you provide evidence of your own, which backs up your position as thoroughly as the In Battalions authors have backed up theirs.' 

15 March 2013
Posted in Theatre

Show your support for local theatres

A major campaign, My Theatre Matters!, has been launched by Equity, The Stage and the Theatrical Management Association. The campaign has grown out of concern about the threats to funding of many theatres across the UK, particularly from local government. Sheffield Theatre, for one, is facing a council cut of £100,000, only weeks after being names regional theatre of the year at the Stage 100 Awards.

The campaign aims to encourage theatres to mobilise their audiences to voice their support for their local venue and tell their own stories about why their theatre matters to them. Harnessed into a national campaign, these local voices can give real weight to the argument in support of public funding for theatre. Actors will be delivering curtain call speeches in theatres asking for support from audiences and the campaign will receive prominent and branded coverage throughout the year and will be spreading the word through social media and a dedicated website.

Latest signatories to the campaign include: Hugh Bonneville (Twenty Twelve, Downton Abbey); Kevin McKidd (Trainspotting), who with 51 Moray-based artists and arts professionals has signed an open letter to Moray Council, arguing for a rethink of the recently announced 100% cut to its arts budget; and David Haig (The Madness of George III).

David Edgar, president of the Writers' Guild, said of the campaign: 'Regional British theatre was one of the great success stories of the 2000s – particularly in its production of new plays. There’s now a real prospect of all that going to waste. Playwrights join directors, actors and other theatre-makers in defence of the network of local and regional companies which is at the heart of Britain’s great theatre achievement.'

Add your name to the list of supporters

09 March 2013
Posted in Theatre

By Alannah O’Sullivan

Robert Adams OBE was an extraordinary man. A paratrooper in WW2, he was also a first-rate runner who coached Ghana’s first athletics team and brought them to Britain after the war.

Working back in the UK, he soon became managing director of various firms, the most well known of which was A. H. Mackintosh Furniture in Kirkcaldy. He was awarded an OBE for his services to the industry.

His charitable works are numerous and, on retirement, he created a whole new profession for himself in writing, becoming chair of the Writers’ Guild in Scotland in the 1990s. One of the good friends he made through the Guild was Alan Plater.

Bob’s wit was legendary and he was sought after as an after-dinner speaker. His plays, The Roup and Scrappy, have toured Scotland. He recently had two books published and had just completed a new play based on his experiences in wartime. He was a truly heroic individual and will be sorely missed.

The funeral will be held on Tuesday, 12 March at Dunfermline Crematorium.

05 March 2013
Posted in Theatre

Ian Buckley on why he felt compelled to put his Communist father's story on the stage

Being the son of a Savile Row tailor, and visiting his small Soho workshop over many years (including stairwell and toilet-cleaning duties!), I got to know the trade of high-class tailor very well.

I also got to know Soho very well. The reason? My father worked from a small, somewhat dark, workshop in a well-proportioned Georgian terraced house that had seen better days. When I knew it in the early 1960s, it was full of tailors like my father, working in their often cramped little rooms, for prestigious high-class gentleman tailors whose grand shops were in Savile Row.

My father's employer was one of the most prestigious of these: Henry Poole. Dad's actual workshop was in Broadwick Street, off Wardour Street and, wonder of wonders, it was in the same house that William Blake, the great English poet, had lived in. It had the blue plaque to prove it! Unfortunately this national treasure has not withstood the march of progress. In its place now stands a squat, ugly block named William Blake House - they haven't even bothered to replace the blue plaque.

Like many tailors my father was, and still is, a strong communist (as is my mother). Fighting against Hitler led him to believe communism was the only system that could withstand fascism. He was also a strong trade unionist, joining the NUTGW (National Union of Tailor & Garment Workers) and fighting for better conditions for his fellow tailors. He combined his communist party duties with his obligations as a trade unionist all his life.

23 February 2013
Posted in Theatre

Fin Kennedy's snapshot of new play development issues a challenge to Culture Minister Ed Vaizey

A shocking exposé of the devastating effect of spending cuts on live theatre has been published by playwright and Writers' Guild Theatre Committee member Fin Kennedy.

The research, In Battalions, which can be read in full above, reveals:

• Nearly two-thirds of theatres surveyed have cancelled one or more productions since April 2012
• Fewer new plays are being produced
• Theatres are experiencing multiple funding cuts from city and county councils,trusts and foundations, reduced fees from venues and decreased box office revenue
• There are fewer full play commissions for writers, and cuts to new writing research and development
• Shorter runs
• Smaller cast sizes
• Cutbacks to playwrights’ residencies and attachments and new writer development schemes
• Lower commission fees to writers
• More revivals.

The project was born after a conversation between Kennedy and Culture Minister Ed Vaizey at a Writers’ Guild event in Parliament, when the minister said cutbacks were having 'no effect' on the theatre.

In an introduction to the survey, Jack Bradley, former Literary Manager of the National Theatre, writes: 'We are no longer a manufacturing nation; our dependency on financial services is trepidatious to say the least. In only one area do we show the world our heels: the Arts. To cut the Arts is to cut apprenticeship,legacy, invention and evolution.'

08 January 2013
Posted in Theatre

By Michael Ross

Photo: Michael Ross (foreground)with Chipo Chung (director) and Kerry Hood

In October I was one of four playwrights selected for the Plays of Innocence & Experience project organised by the Writers’ Guild and RADA, an intensive two-day workshop collaborating on a play script with a professional director and the Academy’s acting alumni.

In addition, each writer was assigned a mentor by the Guild; an experienced writer who would accompany the playwright throughout their workshop and serve as their ally and confidante. All four plays were workshopped over the two days, two in the morning and two in the afternoon, so if your play was not being worked on you could pass freely between the other two as an observer. This was as valuable a part of the experience as your own workshop, as you were able to see how the process worked for other writers.

Different writers will have different, equally valid experiences. Some may go in wrestling with big problems in their scripts which the workshops will hopefully help them resolve by testing out new ideas, and they may cut whole scenes and write new ones, or it may send them back to the drawing board for a much more radical rethink. Or else they may go in with a script they are tentatively pleased with, but about which they have some lingering doubts, and they just need a runway on which to set the play off and see if it takes flight.

08 January 2013
Posted in Theatre

By Jan Harris (pictured, below)

The first time I read about The Writers’ Guild’s Plays of Innocence & Experience scheme was in an email from City University where I had received an MA in theatre and film some years ago. It stated this new project funded by the Writers Foundation UK and run in partnership with RADA was to focus on developing plays of great promise.

Opportunities like these usually come with a price tag, so I cast a beady eye over the details and found an unfamiliar phrase ‘out-of-pocket expenses paid’. In my 20 years of being a ‘new writer’ on both sides of the Atlantic I've never received out-of-pocket expenses. I've had profit share where there has been no profit; I once won a $25 third prize in a playwriting competition that charged $20 to enter, and a prestigious award with a $500 cheque attached from a theatre in Connecticut that cost me $1,000 in airfare to collect. Still cynical, I continued reading looking for the hated words ‘open to new young writers’, only to find that this scheme was ‘open to all writers, at different stages of their careers’.

There’s a new turn of phrase.

08 January 2013
Posted in Theatre

Richard Pinner reports on the first ever venture supported by the new Writers Foundation (UK)

Photo: Writer Kerry Hood (left) and her director, Sophie Lifschutz

The Theatre Committee of the Writers’ Guild has been considering the possibility of running script development workshops for some years, but each time these discussions seemed to founder. Either it was because we couldn’t readily commit adequate funding or find the right partner, or because we were aware that other writers’ support groups, like Script (in the West Midlands), Theatre Writing Partnership ( in the East Midlands) and North West Playwrights, were already fulfilling this brief. We were also fixed on the idea that there had to be an end-product, the need to direct this process toward some kind of public showcase. Which, in turn, led to concerns as to where the performances could take place, how would they be marketed and for what audience; not to mention whether we could afford to underwrite such an event.

Then a number of elements synchronised to put wind in the sails of this venture. Firstly, I called to mind James Houghton, the director of The O’Neill Playwrights’ Conference, describing with great enthusiasm how this convention, held in Connecticut each summer, was purely a get-together of theatre practitioners; a self-contained community of people focussed on the needs of new work without the pressures and compromises that come with performance. Also, how they deliberately encouraged the discourse of emerging writers with very experienced, accomplished dramatists.

18 December 2012
Posted in Theatre

Richard Bevan (below) on how aspiring playwrights should approach tough economic times

These are tough times. Arts cuts, corporate money down the pan and theatres that nurture writers increasingly having to tighten their belts - and in some cases cease funding work altogether. Having recently had a play, Cockeyed, cancelled due to the theatre company’s coffers running dry, I can fully empathise with any budding writer who believes their chosen vocation is akin to wading through raw meat in Vivienne Westwood heels.

But despite the gloom and doom there are lifelines out there and opportunities which even though won’t necessarily pay the mortgage, can at least help to keep creative juices flowing and prevent morale sagging to terminal levels.

In June this year a gathering of some of the north’s most vibrant and innovative theatre companies at Leeds’ West Yorkshire Playhouse, encompassing the likes of Freedom Studios, Hull Truck and Northern Bullits, demonstrated that outside of the West End and regional city theatre programming, there is still a healthy hub of activity taking place in fringe theatre.

At a national level, if you browse the BBC Writersroom website it is encouraging to see that even in these lean times schemes and competitions still abound for both experienced and the not so experienced playwright, even if this doesn’t mean receiving piles of cash. Recently, I was shortlisted for the Off West End Awards Adopt a Playwright scheme. Sadly for me I didn’t win the cherished prize but the nomination was a psychological boost.

The BBC Writersroom is often associated with television scriptwriting but its devotion to theatre has been significant from the department’s inception and continues to be so.

03 December 2012
Posted in Theatre

The Theatre Committee of the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain presented its annual awards for the encouragement of new writing at a lunch ceremony at the Royal Court Theatre Bar at the end of November.

 

Awards winners and nominators: Front row: Sayan Kent (writer), Janet Steel (Artistic Director, Kali Theatre), James Hadley (Relationship Officer, Arts Council England), Josie Rourke (Artistic Director, Donmar Warehouse), Stewart Permutt (writer) Back row: Anne Hogben (Deputy General Secretary, WGGB), David James (writer), Robin Soans (writer), Nick Quinn (agent, The Agency)

The awards, the brainchild of the playwright Mark Ravenhill, were set up to give Guild members the opportunity publicly to thank those who had given them a particularly positive experience in new writing over the previous year. This also gives the committee and the Guild a welcome opportunity to celebrate, rather than focus solely on members’ problems.

The winners are:

James Hadley, nominated by David James

At a time when Arts Council England (ACE) is deeply challenged both by funding cuts and seemingly endless restructuring, and one hears a great deal of disquietude from so many ACE officers, James's energy, enthusiasm and commitment to his specialist field of musical theatre is huge. We have worked together for almost three years, and he has guided me through three successful Grants for Arts applications to support the BOOK Music & Lyrics (BML) musical theatre writing workshop programme I founded in 2010. He has answered endless questions, pointed out numerous places where points of argument on the applications could be strengthened, and always had time for another telephone conversation or meeting to discuss not only the applications but the BML programme as a whole and how it is strategically developing as an ongoing asset for musical theatre writers for the foreseeable future. He is a warm, friendly, and stable support for me. We meet regularly, and he has made the time to visit the workshop sessions. James had to take on a very responsible role as the major supporter of musical theatre at ACE in quite a condensed period of time. He also realises the complexity of the collaborative process of musical theatre and how far the British sector still has to go to achieve its full potential. More importantly, he is also aware of how much he himself still has to experience and learn to guide the sector forward most effectively.

05 November 2012
Posted in Theatre

Robin Soans on the benefits for playwrights of working with drama schools

(The RADA production of Craig Murray's One Turbulent Ambassador - photo by John Haynes, courtesy LAMDA Ltd)

One Turbulent Ambassador, the story of Craig Murray and his strife with the Foreign Office over Human Rights issues in Uzbekistan, is the second Long Project I have written for the three-year acting course at LAMDA. The first, Mixed Up North, became a professional production for the Octagon Theatre in Bolton and Out-of-Joint who toured it and brought it to Wilton’s Music Hall in London, and, wherever possible, it used the original LAMDA actors.

I think drama schools can be even more intensive than universities. Places where you have to work so hard and concentrate so deeply on the various technical skills – voice, diction, dialect, stage-fighting, movement, dance, singing, film, radio and television technique, not to mention successive productions of plays from Classical Greece, through the Restoration to modern drama – that it can be easy to forget the sort of world you are going to be an actor, or stage manager, or a director in. You are not going to be practising your skills in a vacuum, and it seems to me entirely beneficial to give the students an insight into the political and social dilemmas of the day.

02 November 2012
Posted in Theatre

The editors of two new Writers' Guild booklets for working playwrights have defended the publications from criticism that 'they advocate a way of working in which the writer holds the lion’s share of power and control over the creation of work.'

The criticism, published online on Exeunt, came from writer and director Selma Dimitrijevic. 'I have a feeling,' she wrote, 'that someone is aggressively and stridently attempting to execute a pre-emptive strike against an imagined cohort of directors and producers lying in wait to do unspeakable things to me and my play.'

In a response also published on Exeunt, the editors of the booklets, David Edgar and Amanda Whittington, argued that Dimitrijevic misunderstood the booklet's intentions. They point out that the two booklets have very different purposes. 'Engaging with Theatres,' they explain, 'arose out of wide-ranging discussions with playwrights and theatres, and describes the many ways in which playwrights now work with companies, in various forms of development (mentoring, attachments, seed commissions, workshops, rehearsed readings), as well as in alternative forms of playmaking, from site specific performance via portmanteau plays, various forms of collaborative development and working with schools and in communities.'