The Ghost of Guthrie

Almost eight months after this story first came to light, the Sydney Morning Herald has finally got some headlines raging along about the recasting controversy around Ruben Guthrie.

"Criticism is mounting against the replacement of four actors in the hit play Ruben Guthrie, with well-known industry figures slamming Company B's decision," writes Louise Schwartzkoff in today's Herald.

"A revised version of the play about Australia's drinking culture has received glowing reviews at the Belvoir St Theatre. But it is running without the actors Christopher Stollery, Tracy Mann, Lex Marinos and Samantha Reed, who worked for two months with no salary to launch the original independent show at Belvoir's downstairs theatre."

"The actors earned a small cut of the box-office takings."

First writing about this in March, I asked the question about what the ethics are around co-op theatre making good? Do producers and directors have any responsibility to actors who have not only sacrificed their time and creativity but also performed to critical acclaim? Or is it all fair in love and war?

It is something that needs to be addressed rather quickly... before the next occurrence of it happens - which could be sooner rather than later.

It's becoming quickly obvious that Belvoir Street's Downstairs Theatre is all but in name (and wages) a professional theatre gig. A quick look at their program this year and you see a couple of stars lining up alongside professional theatre practitioners - not to mention full-time Company B staff also getting in on the act.

Along with much of the 'independent' theatre sector in Sydney, it is now quite out of reach to your average emerging artist (which gives rise to the other issue around emerging artists starting to find their own spaces and avoiding the rigmarole of getting creative approval for your work - but that's for another post).

But the key to unlocking the problem Company B has found themselves in lies in this simple line in today's story; "The actors earned a small cut of the box-office takings."

I think it might be time to start coughing up MEAA wages for any shows that may ascend up the Belvoir Street Theatre stairs. You can get a pretty good idea which shows they will be. Then actors won't feel half as pissed off if they don't go with it and it'll honour the professional nature of the programming.


*** Please be aware that I have taken the anonymous comment function off this blog. If you have something to say, be proud and put your name to it.

Australia Council strikes as @kathyinvenice tweets

As first published today in Crikey.

It’s not an industrial action that will bring the country to its knees, but a dispute at the Sydney headquarters of the Australia Council for the Arts will likely see strike action in the next two weeks.

Yesterday Australia Council staff voted almost unanimously to take protected industrial action. The Australian Electoral Commission is due to release the official voting figures later today. Central to the dispute is a cut to staffing numbers by 20 per cent since the Rudd Labor Government implemented a 2 per cent efficiency dividend on the Council.

Staff at the Council are angry about reduced conditions and wages, claiming that the 28 positions which haven’t been filled in the last year has led to increased work across all departments.

At the time of the efficiency dividend announcement in May last year, Australia Council CEO Kathy Keele stated that the funding agency were “putting in place measures to maintain our funding for artists and arts organisations by streamlining the organisation and making $2 million in administrative savings”.

But staff feel dejected by the CEO and higher management who are driving a hard bargain in wage negotiations and remained stubborn in not re-filling the vacancies.

Inflaming the situation is the fact that Keele is currently at the Venice Biennale (you can see her Twitter updates here) rubbing shoulders with Ambassador to Italy Amanda Vanstone and “organising artists party”.

Here’s the pick of her Biennale tweets:

@kathyinvenice Organising artists party. Opening tomorrow. All is well.

@kathyinvenice Many of our guests attended the haka which went through the streets of Venice this morning.

@Kathyinvenice St the palazio Grimani with Stefano Carboni giving us a tour!

@Kathyinvenice The sugar piece of Ken Yonetani is so peaceful.

@Kathyinvenice The ludoteca’s works are diverse, important, and totally engaging.

@Kathyinvenice Just about to go to the Ludoteca with the ambassadors.

@Kathyinvenice The heat is so real.

@Kathyinvenice the bells of St Mark’s are overpowering the organ recital! They are deafening and beautiful

@Kathyinvenice Ambassadors Vanstone and Fischer have joined us.

@Kathyinvenice UBS reception very special. Now listening to Bach’s tocata and fugue in St Mark’s. Amazing!

@Kathyinvenice At the Bevilaqua at yoko ono’s exhibition and it is amazing.

Crikey understands that the relationship between staff and the CEO has been strained for sometime but was exacerbated when the efficiency dividend was placed on the agency. It has now led to a breakdown in relations over the wage negotiations.

CPSU Deputy Secretary Nadine Flood told Crikey that the Council “is seriously understaffed and people at all levels are regularly working 12 hours days, plus weekends.”

Flood stated that staff feel “undervalued and insulted by management’s pay offer. It is without doubt one of the lowest ever in the public sector. Management have repeatedly failed to fix this mess so no one should be surprised staff are considering strike action.”

Staff claim that management are trying to broker a deal that would effectively make wages go backwards in real terms. They also claim that management are looking at removing key working conditions and redundancy entitlements as well as removing staff travel for agency workers who need to visit arts organisations across the country.

A spokesperson from the Australia Council told Crikey that the agency is “…continuing to negotiate with the CPSU and staff representatives for a new collective agreement. These negotiations are ongoing. We are keen to conclude an agreement that fairly renumerates employees while working within our tight operating budget.”

The Federal Arts Minister Peter Garrett is also aware of the dispute but will leave the negotiations in the hands of Keele and her management staff.

Until then, you can expect that a few luv-ins at arts venues across the country might have the added spice of a good old fashioned union dispute. Something which should get their hearts racing.

ArtStart (kind of) Gets the Nod‏

As published today in Crikey.


Arts Minister Peter Garrett has finally delivered on his promise to give ArtStart, infamously described by Peter Costello in the lead up to the last election as ‘welfare’ for artists, the green light.

At the time of its proposal in 2007 the Member for Higgins tore into the Member for Kingsford-Smith saying:

The member for Kingsford-Smith said that I would never have thought of something like this. Well, blow me down! I never have thought of something like this: that somebody on welfare needs more time to produce art! What are the responsibilities of someone who is on welfare? Do they have to turn up at the office at 8am and take them away from their easel?

First proposed as a way to develop a "Social Security and the Arts" policy that bridged current Australia Council for the Arts, Centrelink and the Australian Tax Office rules, it aimed to determine “the most equitable way to treat earnings and royalty payments for artists currently receiving welfare.”

Sensibly, Garrett has removed the words "Centrelink" and "Australian Tax Office" from the funding measure and it has now re-emerged as a grant which will be administered by the Australia Council.

It’s a major commitment in this year’s Budget with the Rudd Labor Government to spend $9.6 million over four years which will provide two hundred $10,000 grants to "individual graduate artists to enable them to create a major work or event to build their portfolio and increase their self‑sufficiency".

Aimed at visual artists, musicians, designers and performing arts practitioners, it will provide a much needed leg up particularly for those in capital cities who face rapidly rising rental costs and little support from state based arts bodies -- particularly NSW.

However, the real coup for Garrett is how he has managed to maintain all funding for the arts portfolio, even after the massive injections his predecessor George Brandis delivered under the Coalition government. It was a tall order in the face of a downturn in the economy and in fact, the Arts Minister has even delivered a little bit more.

The Indigenous Arts is another big winner in the Budget. A recommendation of last year’s Senate enquiry into Indigenous Arts and part of the "Closing the Gap" initiative will see an additional $10 million provided over four years to “increase the support for art centre operations, ensuring appropriate staffing, training and salaries for art centre employees, and addressing poor recruitment and retention rates in remote areas”.

Other highlights include $8 million over four years to the Books Alive program and $5 million for NIDA, the Australian Ballet School and Australian Youth Orchestra to get out to regional and out metropolitan areas to teach young kids.

Screen Australia, the newly formed national peak body which merged the Australian Film Commission, Film Finance Corporation and Film Australia into one, continues with funding maintained. It’s just a shame that the new organisation hasn’t done terribly much in the last twelve months (although they have got a nice new logo). Hopefully an additional $750,000 in this year’s budget to help administer the new 40 per cent producer off-set rebate will get them going a bit.

Garrett has also tried to address the lack of touring arts programmes to regional areas with a number of grants to get art exhibitions touring. But Regional Australia’s continuing request left over from last year for $24 million in touring funding is still left out.

There is also no sign that the Rudd Labor Government plans to re-install any aspect of Alexander Downer’s policy of using the arts as a means of second-tier diplomacy. The removal of the previous Downer’s On the World Stage program has been a blow to many of our top arts organisations -- most particularly in their attempts to engage with Asia.

But in a time of recession the arts should be happy with the renewed commitment of the Federal Government and their new Arts Minister. Now they just have to find a way to stop corporate sponsors from leaving the fold.

Who's Who in Creative Sydney?

For your interest...

Creative Sydney is a new festival of ideas that gives creative people the platform to discuss how we can make Sydney the best place in the world to create new film, art, design, music, technology, events and more.

It is part of Vivid Sydney, a unique new public festival featuring Luminous music festival at Sydney Opera House, Smart Light Sydney and Fire Water. Vivid Sydney is one of five anchor events in the first ever NSW Master Events Calendar created by Events NSW on behalf of the NSW Government.

And there will be a festival celebrating the wealth and diversity of the city’s creative talents from May 27- June 13.

As part of that Creative Sydney will be recognising the outstanding talent we have in Sydney; artists, performers and producers, and the people working behind the scenes to build the culture of our city.

They’re applauding the work of 100 Creative Catalysts, individuals who have developed original projects, products or services within their creative field, and who inspire and support other creative people.

And they want your input. Who inspires you? Creative Sydney is open to suggestions as they compile the Creative Catalysts list. They could be friends or peers, people you admire or icons you want to emulate.

Post your nominations on Facebook by April 3.

Register for the newsletter for updates and full launch details at http://creativesydney.com.au/

Follow on Twitter: http://twitter.com/creativesydney


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For the purposes of Creative Sydney the creative industries include: advertising, architecture, visual art, computer software & web development, design (interior, graphic, object), fashion, photography, film, video, animation, performing arts, music, literature and publishing, radio and television, crafts and video games.

Count it. One Billion Dollars.

In today's paper;

"THE State Government has agreed to fund a $1 billion project to finally bring the Sydney Opera House in line with its designer's vision.

"Although a deal has yet to be signed with the Opera House board, Treasury officials indicated two weeks ago that the Government was willing to provide the money needed for the restoration."

One billion dollars. That's one expensive photo opportunity.

The saddest part of this is that only two months ago the State Government through their funding agency, Arts NSW, signed off on the death of four major regional music festivals - the Bellingen Jazz Festival, the Tyalgum Festival, the Bangalow Festival and the Camden Haven Music Festival.

To give this some perspective, the Bellingen Jazz Festival last year received $11,000. Similar amounts were cut from these other festivals.

At the time, director of the Camden Haven Music Festival Alvena Ferguson said, "while the Sydney Festival, which engages mainly overseas performers, received in excess of $4 million, many regional events such as ours, which contribute so much to the economic and cultural life of country communities, have not been supported".

No doubt Mrs Ferguson will be breathless at today's announcement.

Just imagine for a second what you would do with $1 Billion. We all know there are major problems at the Opera House which need to be rectified. We all know of the importance of this cultural icon which is recognisable around the world. But at a time when household income is dropping and a recession is about to take hold, wouldn't this money be better spent on community, regional and grass roots arts and music programmes?

$1 Billion could go to Carriageworks to assist them in properly paying young artists for their festivals.

$1 Billion could go to every independent theatre production in the state to assist them in staging costs thereby increasing the share of box office revenue for co-operatives.

$1 Billion could reinstate the role of regional performing arts organisations such as the Northern Rivers Performing Arts to create and tell local stories.

$1 Billion could assist Councils across the state to implement programmes of creative renewal such as the one now happening with Renew Newcastle.

$1 Billion could be filtered to local community theatres like ShopFront to expand their youth contemporary arts programmes.

$1 Billion could finance the renovations and rebuilding of theatres such as Marian Street and the New Theatre.

$1 Billion could see visual and performing arts programmes implemented in every youth centre in the state.

$1 Billion could see more community access to major arts events and productions off-setting the ticket price for those on lower incomes.

$1 Billion could see the purchase and up keep of the diminishing amount of arts spaces and studios in the inner city.

$1 Billion could finance a state-wide Don Dunstan style of public art programme throughout the state.

$1 Billion could provide musical instruments for every kid in every primary school.

$1 Billion would totally revolutionise the way the arts and music are created and consumed within our state.

Where would you like the $1 Billion to go?

Playwriting Workshops, Development and Funding

The always reliable Bec Clarke created a brilliant note on Facebook yesterday which I feel compelled to cut and paste for all of you who haven't quite caught up with the rest of us twitterbug facers. 

It is a comprehensive list of nearly every possible workshop program, support service and funding source for playwriting for NSW residents. It's rather quite impressive when you look at it from head to toe, but the gaps between writing and staging are pretty clear. 

So here is the list in its entirety with an addition of the Performance Space and Griffin Theatre Company residency opportunities. If you can think of anything missed, leave it in the comments.


2009 Playwriting Workshops, Programs and Funding Deadlines

- Playwriting Australia two week workshop - Feb 27
- Malthouse Theatre - March 1 and Oct 1
- Merrigong Theatre - March 6, May 8, July 10, Sept 11
- OzCo New Work - June 3 and Nov 3
- Arts NSW - July 6 - Grants not outlined until May
- Hothouse Month in the Country - Feb 15 and Aug 15
- Bell Shakespeare - Mind's Eye - 2009 dates posted soon
- B Sharp - Open policy
- Next Stage - By invitation
- Vitalstatix - Women's Theatre Adelaide

- Performance Space - Residency 

- Griffin Theatre Company - Playwrights Residency


***PLAYWRITING AUSTRALIA
National Script Workshop
an intensive residential studio for the creative development of new works

The 2-week residential Workshop programme provides writers with the resources to progress to the next stage of creative development, without the expectation of an immediate performance outcome or the need to produce a performance-ready draft.

Eight writers are invited to develop a new work in its early stages of creative development in an intensive studio environment with directors, dramaturgs and an ensemble of actors.

The Workshop takes place annually in June/July and also features:
a public programme, delivering professional development outcomes to local artists and exploring issues in local theatre-making, and

a graduate programme offering young playwrights, directors and dramaturgs the opportunity to work alongside our senior company on their own creative development.
Submissions for the Workshop are invited annually in March from any interested writer and are assessed by a panel of experienced readers. There are no application or participation fees. Theatre companies are invited to propose projects for participation.

Applications open
Until 27 February
Runs
27 June - July 10 July


***MALTHOUSE THEATRE
In sending a proposal to the company, we ask for the following: One A4 page synopsis of the work, including why you want to work with the Malthouse on this particular idea or script. We are especially interested in what you believe a collaboration with this company will bring to your work and why. We would like to hear about the form as well as the content of your work, and how this engages with the theatrical medium. A one-paragraph biographical note of yourself (150 words maximum) and individual notes of similar length for any other artist involved. If the idea is already a developed text or has been substantially written, a 10-page extract, preferably the first ten pages, of the script or the equivalent in another medium (e.g., 5-min DVD).

All of the above should be presented in a 12-font single-sided format and postmarked no later than the due date. We will not accept faxed or emailed proposals. Proposals may include more than one artist. We ask, however, that individuals or teams send no more than one proposal. This does not preclude you from being named on several proposals. We will assume that any artist named has a commitment to the project in question. Please note that due to time and resource limitations we will not accept anything that sits outside these guidelines.

SELECTION
In receiving a proposal, the company will undertake the following:
A letter acknowledging receipt will be sent to you. Each proposal will be read or viewed internally by the artistic team and may be sent out for an external peer assessment. If the company has an interest in the project, we will notify you within three months of the receipt of your proposal. If you have not heard from us within this period, you may assume that your proposal has been read or viewed but has not been shortlisted for development by the company. Timelines for project development are dependent on the nature of the work, what it requires for production and the programming schedule at any given time.

Please note that due to time and resource limitations we make no commitment to provide feedback on proposals not shortlisted for development. If you wish us to return your proposal and support materials, please provide a stamped self-addressed envelope.

DATES
Deadlines for proposals are 1 March and 1 October of each year. All proposals should be sent to the following: Artistic Department, Malthouse Theatre, 113 Sturt Street, Southbank. VIC, 3006. 

ENQUIRIES
Maryanne Lynch, Dramaturge in Residence, (03) 9685 5111
admin@malthousetheatre.com.au


***MERRIGONG THEATRE COMPANY
Theatre Development Program
This program aims to foster professional theatre practice in the region by providing an identifiable and achievable path for emerging and established artists. Artists can apply for support to develop an idea to its first showing (for example a play reading) or to extend an idea through a dedicated development process (such as a script development or workshop).
Application dates for the Program in 2009 are:
• 6 March
• 8 May
• 10 July
• 11 September
Projects can take place at any time of the year. For more information on how to apply, contact Anne-Louise Rentell, Producer and Theatre Development Manager on either (02) 4226 3699 ext 110 or arentell@merrigong.com.au.


***AUSTRALIA COUNCIL – NEW WORK GRANT
Closing date: 3 June 2009
Decisions advised: September 2009
Projects may start: 1 October 2009
Closing date: 3 November 2009
Decisions advised: March 2010
Projects may start: 1 April 2010

New work grants support one-off projects that result in the creation of new contemporary theatre work. This can include a new production of an existing text.

• Creative development – supports the development stages of a new work, such as research, creative development workshops or commissioning a writer
• Production – supports a public performance of a new work and any stages leading up to it, where a presenting partner has already committed to the project
Applications for production grants must have a presenting partner involved in the project. A presenting partner is defined as anyone able to provide or raise the resources needed to present the work to the public, and could include (among others) venues, festivals, other theatre companies, local governments, museums or independent producers.

Applicants are advised to speak to theatre staff.

Applications can now happen online, after receiving a user identification number. Grant rounds will open for online applications six weeks before the advertised closing date. When a grant round is open it will appear in the online system. (The first time you log into system you will be given a user identification number. This number keeps means you can revisit your application as many times as you want before you submit it.)


***ARTS NSW
The 2010 Arts Funding Program Guidelines and Application Forms will be available for download by close of business, Friday 15 May 2009.

The Closing Date for applications to the 2010 Arts Funding Program is by close of business, Monday 6 July 2009.


***HOTHOUSE THEATRE (Month in the Country)
Annual closing dates – Feb 15 and Aug 15

Funded through Albury City, Arts NSW, Arts Victoria, the Australia Council, Myer Foundation and operated by HotHouse Theatre, A Month in the Country is a national arts resource to facilitate the creation of new Australian performing arts work. The initiative involves an on-going residential program that brings creative teams of writers, actors, directors, designers and other performing artists from across the country to Albury Wodonga during the creative development stage of a myriad of different projects.

Groups of artists from around the country will be supported to live and work in a large farmhouse and adjacent studio just outside Albury for periods of one to five weeks. The use of the farmhouse and studio is free and financial support for transport and living allowances is available.

HotHouse Theatre has created A Month in the Country as part of the company's philosophy of supporting independent artists with good ideas to move those ideas closer to a public outcome. Freelance theatre artists who do not have access to a company infrastructure or support often struggle in the early stages of project development. Even funded companies often have no space resources allocated to developmental stages of projects.

HotHouse Theatre welcomes projects which will benefit from an intense period of creative development in this quintessential rural Australian setting.


***BELL SHAKESPEARE (Mind's Eye)
Shakespeare provides us with an inexhaustible repository of ideas. There is a philosophical debate in almost every speech and a new piece of theatre in every image. More than any writer, Shakespeare has inspired artists to imagine and to create other worlds.

Mind’s Eye, Bell Shakespeare’s development arm, will harness the best of these ideas and allow them to be put to the test. It will demonstrate a commitment to innovation, recognising that creative risk is at the heart of our practice. It will allow artists to push the boundaries of their form, explore their connection to the contemporary world and enrich their work with ambitious ideas.

Mind’s Eye will give artists a safe platform from which they can perform daring feats.

Works developed within the Mind’s Eye programme can be initiated by writers, designers, directors, composers, choreographers or performers. These may be cross art-form, hybrid works and not strictly text based. It is an opportunity to engage with a broader circle of artists, providing important industry access and support. It prioritises strong creative development and rigour as a means of ensuring artistic vibrancy.

Mind’s Eye calls for submissions on an annual basis.
Submissions for 2008 closed on 29 September 2008, with over 30 submissions received.
Applications, selection criteria and terms and conditions for 2009 will be posted in February 2009.


***STC NEXT STAGE
Throughout the year Next Stage will invite a group of artists to participate in our inaugural season of Rough Drafts. These week-long creative developments will give theatre makers the opportunity to experiment: to try out new ideas, new ways of working and new collaborations. There will be an opportunity for you to attend a free, one-off showing at the conclusion of each week-long development. If you wish to join us at these showings, visit this website regularly throughout 2009, sign up for our email newsletter or become our friend on Facebook.


***RIVERSIDE THEATRE COMPANY
PLAYWRITING MASTERCLASSES
Three intensive workshops with leading Australian playwrights

Each playwright will deal with different aspects of the process and disciplines employed in writing for the stage. Courses are designed for established and emerging playwrights.

Debra Oswald and Christopher Hurrell
Saturday 4th April

Katherine Thomson
Saturday 20 June

Timothy Daly
Saturday 29 August

PLAY READING OPPORTUNITY
Following attendance at the Masterclasses the writers are invited to submit a play. Two plays will be selected to be workshopped and read in Riverside's BREAKOUT development program under the guidance of a professional director and actors.

Cost
$80 per workshop including light lunch, morning and afternoon tea

Location Raffertys Studio at Riverside Theatres
Corner Church and Market Streets, Parramatta


***B SHARP
Open Door Downstairs: If you have an idea or project you would like us to consider for inclusion in the B Sharp season, or for development within the B Sharp creative development program please feel free to contact us anytime to discuss the work. We’ve moved away from the open pitch process, and programming for the B Sharp season (in the form of a new twin season model) will continue throughout the year through ongoing conversation and collaboration. The programming timeline for the July – December 2009 will be March 2009 and for the first half of 2010 will be November 2009. The B Sharp creative development program, supports the development of new Australian work, which means you can also talk to us about projects that are still in the dreaming stages We hope to see the fruits of this program fill the Downstairs stage over the coming years!

Simply drop us an email or give us a call.


***VITALSTATISTIX (Women’s Theatre Co. – Adelaide) 
- Vitalstatistix exists to curate, support and produce, new, high quality, provocative and challenging live performance by Australian women, which engages and entertains a diverse audience and contributes to Australian culture. Vitalstatistix is a catalyst and incubator for the development of important, innovative contemporary arts practice in Australia. 


***PERFORMANCE SPACE
Residency Program

As part of Performance Space's commitment to supporting dynamic collaborative processes between artists, we offer a residency program for independent artists, artistic teams and small companies collaborating across disciplines, technologies and/or artforms to create new performative work. The Residency Program uses in-house resources to support both R + D and creative development of new work. 

***GRIFFIN THEATRE COMPANY
Playwrights Residency

Griffin offers key opportunities for emerging playwrights through its ground-breaking PLAYWRIGHTS' RESIDENCY.

Over 12 months, Griffin invites four playwrights the chance to build a lasting, working relationship with Griffin Theatre Company – and provides collaborating artists to work with towards production.

Griffin's Playwrights' Residency has been responsible for introducing playwrights such as Tommy Murphy and Caleb Lewis to mainstream audiences hungry for new work and new voices. The former resident playwrights' work included the award-winning Holding the Man, Strangers in Between and Nailed.

Griffin's Playwright Residency is a valued source of play development and plays a vital part in helping a new generation of playwrights find their voice.

In addition to financial assistance, workshops and professional development, all four playwrights feature and participate directly in Griffin's annual program, with Seasons, four short ten-minute plays presented throughout 2008, and a further four full-length plays presented as public readings.

Dust off those tutus

This blog is now in its third year which also means we are turning another fresh page of performance as each of the companies launch into their programmes for 2009.

As our economy readies itself to take a huge punch in the guts, '09 has a different flavour to it than previous years. You won't have seen to much evidence of it just yet but you can be assured cultural organisations across the country will really start to feel the heat by the end of year. (Maybe Kookaburra was our canary in the mines with their collapse a few months ago.)


As Government support shrinks and corporate sponsors dry up, programs will inevitably alter, staffing will become limited and projects will be smaller. On a social level, this is going to be a devastating couple of years. Creatively, it's a god send.

In a recent post, Marcus Westbury makes an excellent case for the creative benefit of a recession as he reflects on what the 90s meant for Melbourne's artists and musicians.

Looking at a post boom Melbourne it is easy to forget how much of what i love about this city is the product of the last great recession of the early 90s. Its laneway bars, its smart graffiti, its living CBD, its distinctive inner suburbs of eclectic shops and retail strips, its creative community are not the product of arts agencies or central planning but of the fertile ground, cheap space, and hard working initiative of a decade ago. The city is a rich ecology not created through central planning but grown in economic detritus and forged in the harsh and searing furnace of hard times.

He is absolutely right. NSW has been in recession for around twelve months and already artists are answering the call by setting up cheap initiatives, breaking into illegal spaces and creating new forms of arts creativity. It has only just began and it's burgeoning - but thank the Lord - it has started after a drought of ten years.

This newest financial crisis will no doubt spur things on a bit more.

As the learned Mr Westbury points out;

Yet recessions can be great times for low budget cultural initiatives. Space - the almost impossible to find holy grail of artists in the boom times - becomes relatively cheap and available. Higher levels of unemployment means that talent has more time to experiment and innovate and less temptation (or opportunity) to chase big bucks elsewhere. Large scale cultural production - with it’s expensive overheads and high costs - becomes relatively more difficult. Small scale production - which works best when there is a very high ratio of initiative and labour to expenses and overheads - benefits immensely from the rapidly falling costs.

Just look at what is happening post-Lanfranchi's; warehouses around Surry Hills, Redfern and Newtown are opening up, the brilliant Imperial Panda Festival is growing and the POPE license is finally dead. Space and talent are opening up.

Hopefully Federal and State Governments will follow the lead and stop constantly throwing money at photo opportunity funding initiatives and start supporting local artists and projects to give the industry more sustainability and a creative ecology.

For those of you with a taste for the larger budget productions, enjoy 09 because it will be the last for a while.

Which brings me to the whip-round of the performance calendar across Sydney...

The river runs dry

As the Murray River - the natural border between New South Wales and Victoria - dries up, it seems that state borders are also breaking down. Well, in arts policy anyway.

Today in Crikey an interesting anonymous tip arrived;
Arts Victoria funding announcement is scheduled to be released this Friday. Several arts organisations that do really good work, highly respected, genuinely tick all the boxes for Australian content, developing young artists, building partnerships, have got the knife. This follows on from some severe bloodletting in the Australia Council funding announcements earlier this year. Some organisations that are rumoured to be defunded this year include Chambermade Opera, Astra, Ballet Lab, Elision (not able to be verified till after Arts Vic announcement).

Lots of disquiet and anger amongst the arts community which is waiting for the government injunction on Friday to lift following the announcement so that they start raising hell. Regarding the Australia Council, a strange Sydney focus and a big conservative lean. In Arts Vic, a sudden-death change in tune to organisations who were given assurances six months ago that all was well and now have had the plug pulled with no wind-down plan or valid explanation of why evaluations have changed. Several orgs are likely to fold, and others have dramatic staff, admin and programming cuts to face up to. A real kick in the guts to Australian culture and a worryingly cavalier attitude to sustainable art-making from the arts bodies.


There's three points to this argument that get lost amongst the general howling that goes on whenever there is some major funding changes.

Firstly, when is the arts industry going to learn to lobby governments as a united front? This constant justification for funding cloaked in terms of educational/community/social benefits instead of pushing the old fashioned we are here and we need to be funded line is extraordinarily divisive. This is not to mention the amount of back-stabbing that goes on behind closed doors whenever an organisation gets the ear of a Minister - 'they get lots of money, why don't we get some of that' type of tactic.

We must be the only industry in the country that lobbies the government like this and other industries representing anything from mining to banking to education wouldn't be caught dead playing those types of tactics.

Secondly, eventually there needs to be some clearing away of the deadwood so that emerging artists, practitioners and organisations get a turn at the funding pie (not that all the above companies are deadwood). But there needs to be a reality check from many organisations that maybe their time is up. Often a group will get funding for say ten years and what they were proposing back in 1998 hasn't really changed a decade later. And it's a funding pie that everyone seems to take for granted. I have seen on industry bulletin boards straight up whinging and moaning when a company does get funding that it is a) not enough b) too little too late or c) not the right type of funding.

And finally, surely it must be time to examine the rift that exists between the major performing arts companies (AMPAG) and the rest of the industry. This shouldn't just be couched in financial terms but also within the creative. Partnerships need to be established far more often that what they are and they must be across all platforms.

It really shouldn't be a surprise when the Australia Council, Arts NSW or Arts Victoria shake things up a bit. Shouldn't we be innovative enough to keep a bit ahead of the game?

Theatre as life and death

"So now it is time to go back into the theatre, and it feels right because I've always been a great believer that one of the functions of theatre is to help us to discover how to live even in the face of death, and that all great storytelling helps to heal."

And so goes Lyn Gardner's beautiful account of what the theatre means to her. It's a stunning blog post that is one of the more touching and passionate entries I have read about this most amazing art form that I love similarly.
It would be refreshing if a bit more theatre criticism was a little more passionate and little more personal. Simply put, why do critics try and pretend to be objective when criticism is nothing more than subjective opinion?

Thankfully there is a bit of passion going around at the moment. Alison Croggon at Theatre Notes brought my attention to a bit of passion from Senator Kim Carr who has always impressed me - especially when he was the number one opposite to the then Arts Minister George Brandis.

His speech at last week's National Press Club address is a ripper and ends with this;

I believe the creative arts – and the humanities and the social sciences – make a terrible mistake when they claim support on the basis of their commercial value.

Whatever they may be worth in the marketplace, it is their intrinsic value we should treasure them for.

We should support these disciplines because they give us pleasure, knowledge, meaning, and inspiration.

No other pay-off is required.

I wonder what Carr would have said about Henson if he had been the Arts Minister?

And the passion continues with the announcement that my dear colleague James Waites has finally sorted out his relationship with the inconsistent Australian Stage Online and set up his own blog. Nothing like going out on your own. Good one James.

In fact, my dream is coming true and the Sydney Cultural Blogosphere is expanding, as one by one more people join the fold. Kevin Jackson, a teacher at NIDA has also recently started a review website which always proffers some interesting perspectives on shows around the city.

Another welcome arrival to the Sydney blog scene is the arrival of Esoteric Rabbit from Melbourne. Even though he is presently juggling the time pressures of his new and fabulous job opportunity at The Australian, I am told that the more important work of blogging will resume in the not too distant future.

And the theatre companies are really engaging with us, appreciating that we are providing a legitimate alternative to the mainstream media. In fact, after nearly two years of running this blog I am reliably informed that it is generating nearly the same amount of hits the arts web pages at the SMH receive. Which is frankly probably not that difficult.

But there is something afoot in Sydney and I am not sure what it is.

Just last night, I attended a cultural forum put on by Clover Moore's independent team who are running in this weekend's Local Government elections. John Wardle, who is on her ticket and is the man responsible for the brilliant Raise the Bar campaign gave a great introductory speech to the forum which was held in an 'illegal' place of public entertainment in Surry Hills.

Moore responded with an excellent and considered speech that appeared to be mostly ad-lib, showing that cultural policy is now at the forefront of the City of Sydney. (Read: we are sick of being jealous of Melbourne).

But the highlight of the night was a speech by local artist and arts organiser Jess Cook who had a fabulous ten minute rant about what the arts mean to her in Sydney. I am going to try and get the text of the speech because I wish I had recorded it and uploaded it onto here. Her message was clear - stop importing and start supporting. 

What a great attitude. Something is definitely happening here. 

  

 

Don't just rehearse your departure

We have been waiting for this article from the Sydney Morning Herald for months now.

"ARTISTS and performers chasing success in Sydney should pack their bags and leave. Head to Melbourne, Perth or Brisbane. Anywhere really, as long as it is outside NSW," the article from Louise Schwartzkoff begins.

"That is the advice from some of Sydney's most experienced independent artists, fed up with delays from the state's leading arts funding body," it goes on.

The news isn't just that independent artists are giving people the advice, it is also staff at the Australia Council; don't even bother is the message from grant advisors.

"We call ourselves the submerging artists of NSW. All this confusion is destroying us,"Dean Walsh, an independent dancer and choreographer told the SMH.

"I love Sydney, but I feel like I'm bleeding here. There comes a point where you have to ask, 'What's the use of staying?'" he said.

Many SAJ readers would be well across all of this because it isn't really anything new.

According to the article, the Iemma Government will spend $26 million on cultural grants this year which is $3 million down on last year.

And as we all know, other states including Queensland, Victoria and Western Australia are introducing "new production funds to help bring more independent work to the stage".

I have been rabbiting on about this for a while now. It's all very simple. If you are an artist that isn't affiliated with any of the major institutions you have two choices - leave or just stay in Sydney and get on with making art and forget about it.

Of course the new problem is that none of the small to medium sector nor any independent artists know what guidelines they can apply for through Arts NSW for 2009 because they still haven't released them.

And it's August.

The Herald explains that "Carol Mills, the director-general of the NSW Department of Arts, Sport and Recreation, hopes a revised cultural grants program will ease the frustration. She says the new system will be efficient, simple and transparent."

"We know problems are created by uncertainty about funding and that's at the top of our agenda - to minimise the period of time people are unsure," Mills told them.

No sorry.

What is creating frustration is the fact that the State Government keeps hurling money at major institutions for a photo opportunity while continually removing money for community based and the small to medium sector.

Arts NSW may be developing a new fan dangled online submission process, which is marvellous, but at the end of the day, everyone is sick of the PR speak and the excuses.

And don't get me started again on World Youth Day.

WYD wash-up: NSW put on a great party (even if it snubbed most)

As first published in Crikey.


It’s amazing what the NSW State Government can do when it puts its mind to it.

For a week they set up road closures and bus lanes in the heart of the city that created an urban-wonderland for pedestrians and cyclists.

The much maligned rail network was suddenly on time, efficient and quick.

Live music events filled venues from the harbour to the Domain, public debates and discussions were held in halls and a major theatrical event was staged to an audience of thousands creating the ultimate spirit of festival.

The sheer infrastructure of World Youth Day surpassed even APEC and must have made those that run major sporting, cultural and arts events in Sydney weep with envy.

The Greens have alleged that in total the NSW State Government provided at least $108.5 million which included substantial costs in police, public transport, emergency services and road works. This is in addition to half the $41 million costs to the Australian Jockey Club for the use of Randwick Racecourse as a temporary place of worship and as a camping site and does not include the $22 million that the Commonwealth threw in.

Just imagine what type of event could be staged in Sydney for close to $150 million that was for all citizens. The possibilities are endless. Sports fields could host major carnivals. Regional theatres and public halls could be given a breath of new life. It could be a week long event that would reach from the very east to the very west.

It was a model of commitment and a fantastic orchestration of infrastructure. But the problem always will be that World Youth Day was an exclusive event controlled through the compulsory registration of participants. It has left a sour taste in the mouths of those not involved with this particular strand of religion.


Unlike the Olympics or the Sydney Festival, the people of Sydney found themselves catering to a very specific cross-section of society. I can only imagine how the Protestant factions of the Christian Church felt over the last seven days.

There’s something to be said for the tolerance of people who live in Sydney. For those that lived in the inner city, taking the swarming masses of pilgrims in their stride, a secret code emerged. Faced with the youth group chants on your way to get milk or bread, you would come across a local non-participant and give each other that look of understanding that said, "Don’t worry, it will all be over soon."

For the victims of child s-x abuse they saw a real opportunity to engage with the Church, the Vatican and the Pilgrims. The Foster family was on the minds of everyone, not to mention that taxi drivers who listen all day to talk-back radio. But in the end, it was a closed shop. The Foster family didn’t get what they wanted and neither did victims of child abuse.

Others were more freely engaged. A protest of one thousand people gathered in the gay heart of Oxford Street to voice their concerns about the Catholic Church and their dominant political and social policies. Lesbians and gays joined with socially liberal Christians, atheists, disaffected Catholics and representatives from Broken Rites.

They made it clear during all of their speeches that they weren’t anti-Catholic but rather they demanded tolerance and acceptance. Even when a stray group of young American pilgrims found themselves in the middle of the protest they were greeted with smiles and good humour.

And it was smiles and good humour that really summed up the week. I found myself on the final day of World Youth Day sitting on a pub balcony watching the thousands of pilgrims returning. Sitting with a few locals we waved and cheered them for no particular reason.

The local drunk kept yelling at those carrying banners and flags asking where they were from. This was always followed by a cheer. We waved goodbye and found ourselves exactly the same as when the arrived. Nothing has changed and it is such a shame that after all that money, after all those people and all that effort, most of us -- the Foster family -- weren’t included.

Kevin Rudd's efficiency dividend hits the Australia Council

As first published in Crikey.

Nick Pickard and Ben Eltham write:

"Thanks to Mr Rudd's efficiency dividend, I have been deemed 'excess to requirements'," the group email began.

And so it goes for 13 public servants of the Australia Council for the Arts who have been given the tap on the shoulder in response to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s enforced efficiency dividend.

But there is no love lost between the nation’s major arts funding body and artists who have been crying out for less bureaucracy for years. Particularly individual artists.

In total, 28 people are leaving the Australia Council through a combination of voluntary and non-voluntary redundancies, reducing the overall staff numbers from 150 in 2007/08 to 122 this coming financial year. It makes the Council one of the leading lights in Rudd’s commitment to save $1.8 billion across the entire public service.

Various fearful emails from disgruntled staff should start making the rounds, but artists should be the last to complain, with CEO Kathy Keele making a full commitment to not cut grants.


"We are putting in place measures to maintain our funding for artists and arts organisations by streamlining the organisation and making $2 million in administrative savings," she said at the time of the 2% efficiency dividend announcement.


Yesterday, Keele told Crikey that a formal business process review ran from January to March this year which "identified seven key areas for efficiency improvements: travel, finance, property services, grants assessment and management, project management, relationships with arts organisations and the research function."


The key concern for artists though is the business of giving them money. And with the bureaucracy stuck just a stone’s throw away from the News Ltd empire in Sydney's Surry Hills, cost cuts will mean those in other regions of the country have even less access to council staff.


Indeed, there is a key proposal in the business process review to "reduce the amount of face-to-face meeting time and associated travel cost for the peer assessment panels through online assessment and other processes," Keele said.


But that has always been a problem for artists not close to Sydney ever since the Council was established by the Whitlam Government in 1973. In fact, a blanket enforcement of artists to go online to apply and acquit their grants may actually create a more level playing field.


To streamline the grant application and acquittal process, the Australia Council is moving the way of the world and shifting it to a focus on "online management of the grants process, specifically online grants reporting and online applications from next year," Keele said.


Future challenges facing the Council, however, are looming. It’s all very well to trim the fat, but if Rudd decides to extend the efficiency dividend further you could see an organisation start digging substantially into grant finances. And for arts organisations who are already running on the smell of an oily rag, particularly in the small to medium sector, any cost squeeze will bury their future.


Maybe that’s why the Council has had the foresight to be "best in show" with the efficiency dividend request. It could produce favours down the line.

Spot the difference

Two states, two articles, same day;



Australian Financial Review - 4 June

Winners and losers in the NSW budget

LOSERS:

The Arts - No major announcements except for funding for expansion or
refurbishments of existing centres and facilities.


Australian Associated Press - 4 June

Flagship buildings win with $50 million boost to arts

By Gabrielle Dunlevy

BRISBANE, June 3 AAP - Queensland's flagship cultural facilities are
the main benefactors from a $50 million boost to the state's arts
budget.

The Bligh government will invest more than $259 million in the state's
arts sector in 2008-09, up from $209 million in the last financial
year.

The funding includes $34 million to finish a two-year refurbishment of
the Queensland Performing Arts Centre, and $118.4 million for other
flagship institutions, including the State Library of Queensland and
the Queensland Art Gallery.

"This budget is about continuing to foster an arts sector that is
sustainable and marketable, that has a local focus and an international
vision," he said.

The State of Origami

For my dear Victorian readers, I should explain that tonight is the first of three State of Origin Rugby League matches.

I prefer to refer to it as State of Origami, which isn't meant to refer to the elegant simplicity of origami, but rather the sheer boredom you would suffer if you had to watch it for eighty minutes.

HG Nelson was interviewed on Radio National this morning and thanked the radio announcer for giving tonight's game a bit of publicity.

"There just hasn't been any media attention around this game," he said. "I am pouring over the newspapers today and not a damn thing about the game tonight."

The beautiful irony would not have been lost on those boring pinko lefty Radio National listeners.

Which brings me to the small fall-out from the article I wrote this week about a certain opinion piece by Michael Duffy that appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald on Saturday.

Published in Crikey on Monday, I had a good old fashioned rant that defended the role that the arts (and more particularly artists) play in our little corner of the world.

Central to my argument was that; "Art is going on all around you Michael, with or without the support of you and your colleagues in the media. Australians attend more theatre and live performance than they do sport. But one look at our media organisations and you'd never know it."

A comment to the article by 'Sandy' was a very interesting response to the article that I think a lot of people would have;

"I'd like to see the end of both of these wasteful elite slush buckets, but at least the sports people deliver some results and help large numbers of people feel good," he said.

"And really, Nick, if you were running the news, would you replace the sports coverage with analysis and previews of the high art scene? Not if you wanted anyone to keep watching," he said.

This is something that I have been thinking a lot about recently. Over the weekend I flew up to Brisbane to check out the Super 14 match between the Queensland Reds and the NSW Waratahs. And you know what, it was really quite boring.

And that wasn't just me. That was the response from the 20-odd thousand people in the stadium. At times it was so quiet, I wasn't sure whether I was in a museum or at a big and bright spectacle that we call 'sport'.

Indeed, the Queensland Rugby organisers practically pre-empted a boring match and hired drummers and musicians whose job it was to get the spectators cheering. And boy did they work hard.

And this isn't the first time that I have experienced a boring game of Rugby. I have experienced it at AFL matches, Rugby League matches and soccer matches. Sometimes you can get a really exciting game. In fact, odds on, you probably experience a really exciting footy match at about the same frequency as you experience a really exciting theatre production.

I am starting to think that the people in our little corner of the world are MADE to think that sport is this big, bright and beautiful thing all the time. The roaring graphics we see on television all the time, the hysterical commentators make you think that something really, really exciting is happening.

But it isn't really. It is sometimes but you need to fuel the interest with booze, cheerleaders, drummers and load sounds.

Feel good indeed. And yes, I would replace the sports coverage with analysis and previews of the arts. And I'd get Ray Warren, Eddie Maguire and Sam Newman to host the bloody thing too.

UPDATE: What a shock! Maybe people are catching on. This in Crikey today;

State of Origin suffering a popularity crisis in Sydney

For the first time in a long time -- perhaps a quarter of a century -- much of the build up to this year’s State of Origin series has focussed on the inability to get a capacity or near capacity crowd at tonight’s opening match at ANZ Stadium.

The ARL will need a good walk up crowd on the night to get anywhere near last year’s 75,000, which was still short of capacity. Ticket sales are reported to be in the region of 60,000, but anything less that 70,000 will raise further questions about the true state of the game of rugby league in Sydney ...

Why Michael Duffy's wrong about arts in Australia

As first published in Crikey.

Sydney Morning Herald columnist Michael Duffy needs to get out more. In Saturday’s op-ed pages Duffy wrote one of the more generalised and least researched pieces I have read from him in quite a while.

"One of the mysteries of my lifetime has been the disappearance of significant Australian artists, in any art form," Duffy starts.

"When I was at school, and an undergraduate in the 1970s, there was a pantheon of first-rate artists whose names were familiar to most Australians, at least among the middle class. Their work was widely taught or hung on walls or shown in cinemas: it was part of the national consciousness."

Duffy complains that he doesn’t know of any artists of any "significance". He longs for a time when there were names like Arthur Boyd, Patrick White and John Olsen. He even attempts to drag Australian culture to its glorious colonial past by quoting English writer John Betjeman who "visited Australia in the early '60s and wrote that we were experiencing a new Elizabethan age".

Unfortunately for Duffy, the artists out there creating and making and exploring -- and the audiences that see and experience and buy artistic work -- no longer need the approval of some authority from the motherland.

The fact is that Duffy ignores the great changes that have happened to artistic expression since he was a poor undergraduate. The time of the great exclusive artist who produces a "masterpiece" are thankfully gone as more and more people experience art in everyday situations. From community centres, to sold-out fringe theatres, inner city and regional galleries, alternative warehouse spaces, to street art and festivals, artists and their audiences are experiencing everything from cloth to film to dance and are making cities and towns come alive with colour and vibrancy.

Art is going on all around you Michael, with or without the support of you and your colleagues in the media. Australians attend more theatre and live performance than they do sport. But one look at our media organisations and you'd never know it.

I hope that Duffy took the time to read through to another section of the newspaper and he may have found the answer to why he doesn’t know any local artists. A quick glance at the Good Weekend magazine featured a very interesting article on the Australian Institute of Sport.

"The AIS produces the winners Australians love: by some counts, more than half the total medals at the last Olympics were associated with the AIS. And yet it produces them in exactly the way Australians like least: by creating a highly elite, exclusive, expensive system. So elite and exclusive in fact, it has to have a special mandate under the federal Anti-Discrimination Act to exist at all; and so expensive that its budget for 2007-08 is a cool $43 million, and each full-time scholarship is worth $30,000 a year," the article explains.

If you tried to have this type of funding model for an arts training program you could guarantee that media outlets across the country would have a field day. But for sports it’s ok.

The artists are there, but as far as the media is concerned, sport is what we care about. Each night, close to half of news bulletins is made up by sport. Each day in our newspapers, pages and pages and pages of analysis, reports, previews, articles and opinions are dedicated to sport.

The world that Duffy portrays makes you feel as though artists throughout the country are getting money left right and centre. If only that were true. The Sydney Theatre Company, as an example of funding, gets just under $7 per ticket in funding for theatre.

Duffy goes on to make the wild claim that he suspects that "government funding has had something to do with this drying up of major talent. An artist who depends substantially on subsidies, even if just in the early years, creates work for those who give out the subsidies rather than for the general public."

By that logic, if The Sydney Morning Herald stopped paying Duffy, we might get some better articles. Not a bad idea at all.

Arts funding sticks to status quo

As first published in Crikey.

For the arts, this year’s budget is less about a "Creative Australia" and more like steady-as-she-goes, as Arts Minister Peter Garrett follows on closely from predecessor George Brandis. However, it's what happens over the coming years that could be of most concern to the arts community.

So far, very little has changed from the previous financial year, with the previous government delivering one of the largest injections of federal money to the arts just twelve months ago. Garrett has pretty much maintained the funding for the coming twelve months, adding a few small flourishes of his own that give a little push to arts institutions to foster new talent and new creativity.

The biggest change we will see this year is the creation of Screen Australia, a Howard Government initiative to merge the Australian Film Commission, Film Finance Corporation and Film Australia into one national peak body. It has been kept by Garrett and provided with $103 million for the coming financial year.

A closer look at the finances reveals that this is a funding cut to the film industry when you look at the overall provision of the three organisations from previous years. But a Garrett spokesman has told Crikey that the new 40% producer rebate for qualifying production expenditure will hopefully make more of the film industry "rely less on direct funding".

ArtStart, the controversial programme that will provide artists with improved access to social security has been ignored this year but Crikey has been told that it's "still an election commitment and has not dropped off the radar".

Regional Australia has also been left off the map after a continuing request for $24 million in touring and presentation funding was ignored. The Arts Minister has tried to offset that cut with the creation of a $10 million Creative Communities initiative that takes the arts to outer metropolitan and regional areas.

As well, the Australia Council for the Arts, already hit with an "efficiency dividend" of 2% earlier this year, gets a slight increase in total government funding to $173.2 million. This will no doubt please the major performing arts companies, the small to medium performing arts sector and the visual arts and crafts industry, who profited most from Howard’s previous budget.

But after the slight increase this year, future budget estimates show that Federal Government funding plateaus despite inflation rising by 4%. As well as these increasing costs and the efficiency dividend, the Australia Council will also have to find $6.6 million to fund Garrett’s Young and Emerging Artists program, which aims to increase the exposure of performing arts companies to schools and young people.

Kathy Keele, Australia Council CEO has guaranteed that grants to artists, despite the rising costs, will not be affected. “We are putting in place measures to maintain our funding for artists and arts organisations by streamlining the organisation and making $2 million in administrative savings,” she said.

Another organisation hit by the efficiency dividend has been the National Library of Australia which sees funding drop $600,000 to around $57.6 million for the coming financial year. Already running off the smell of an oily rag, the cut to the NLA has angered many, not only within literary circles but also those who understand the importance of storing digital information – a costly and complicated exercise that will keep the nation's public records for years to come.

One of the positives from this year’s budget is the creation of a resale royalty rights scheme for visual artists that will cost $1.5 million over the next three years. The funding will assist in creating an independent collecting body that will ensure that artists continue to get paid for works when on-sold to other buyers.

“This scheme will bring Australia into line with similar resale royalty arrangements operating in the United Kingdom and Europe and will embody the recognition that visual artists’ rights extend beyond the first sale of an artwork,” Mr Garrett said in a statement on Budget night.

The creation of a new National Film and Sound Archive as an independent statutory authority is another big step and will receive an allocation of $105.2 million over four years.

“As well as continuing its important activities in relation to the national audiovisual collection, the government believes it is important that the National Film and Sound Archive has a strong role in public outreach,” Mr Garrett said.

It’s a solid first budget for Mr Garrett, setting him only slightly apart from his predecessor. He is slowly showing his stripes in favouring additional funding for young and emerging artists. It’s a small step, but it could be the tip of an iceberg as he slowly forces the institutions that previously found favour with the Howard Government to increase their involvement with young people and start investing in the future creativity of the country.

Darlinghurst Theatre does an about turn

It is just a proposal, but it looks as though the Darlinghurst Theatre Company are reversing the way they programme and manage their theatre productions.

In an email to the local industry today, Company Director Glenn Terry has asked for feedback on a number of proposals that they are presently considering.

The email declares that Darlinghurst Theatre Company is "moving more and more towards becoming a Production House producing the work of Independent Artists".

Terry goes on to explain that "over the next three to five years, we will evolve into a Production House that will provide budgets for productions, fully production manage shows and pay artists at industry rates".

The proposals could be a sign of things to come for the thriving independent sector in Sydney. At present, the four main indie theatres (Darlinghurst, Stablemates, Downstairs Belvoir and the Old Fitzroy) do very complicated, time wasting and expensive submission and production processes.

They all usually involve a written submission that grandly states the intention of the production, the marketability and the usual explanation of the magnificent attributes of each of the creative team.

Once selected, companies usually pay through the nose for stage space (often over $2000 per week), plus additional costs in booking fees, credit card fees, technical fees, front of house fees, printing fees, advertising fees, mailing fees... fees, fees, fees.

As a consequence, most people involved in theatre productions in Sydney never get paid. It's great for experience, but is as good as sweatshop labour when questions of industrial relations are concerned.

Darlinghurst Theatre Company look like they are trying to reverse the trend;

In 2009:

Artists will still submit projects that will include a team of creatives, but their producing role will be to focus on the creative side of the production: directing, design, performance and artistic outcome.

Darlinghurst Theatre Co. will undertake all practical production matters including production management, publicity, all marketing, sales, graphic design, tech support, rehearsal space, stage management, bump in and out, and all production practical matters.

Artists will no longer need to put up cash for their production.

Production cost budget: Darlinghurst Theatre Co. will allocate each production a budget of roughly $20,000: which will cover royalties, a budget for the set, a budget for costumes, printing costs posters, flyers, programmes and graphic design, designer fees for lighting designer, sound designer, set and costume designer.

Artists split: the producing team of artists will be given 20 to 25% of box office which must only go to, and be split amongst the performers and director. Darlinghurst Theatre Company will guarantee that this percentage is a minimum of $9000.

Our show runs will be longer and be five and half weeks.

Financially, it is a much sounder plan that will allow production teams to concentrate on creating the work. It would also put tight reigns on over-enthusiastic and naive designers and producers from spending too much money.

Creatively, however, I think that it could be a bit of a black hole. Darlinghurst has already found a niche with its audiences and programming that concentrates on crowd pleasing comedy and drama. The proposal to put up the money will mean that Darlinghurst will want even more stringent guarantees on the commercial viability of the productions. Which, of course, isn't always a bad thing. But sometimes it's nice to take a journey into the dark.

Nevertheless, it's a brave and long over-due move which rewards independent theatre groups and individual artists that have been working their butts off in creating theatre and attracting continuous audiences. Above all, it raises the bar for indie venues to re-examine the way they manage the flow of their finances. And that's a breath of fresh air.

Nothing even compares to going to the Rugby

My father loves Rugby. Not that other poor excuse for a game referred to as 'League' but the Rugby of his youth when he played in the rough and tumble of Parramatta first grade.

He used to take me to as many games as he could afford, the highlight always being when we played the All Blacks. The atmosphere as it whips up with the teams running onto the field. The Haka, the staring down, the whoops and cheers.

You can see the glint in his eyes when the Wallabies are close to scoring a try. He lifts his huge frame and starts yelling at the players. If they don't score, his exasperation is a most marvellous thing to behold.

It's a shame I don't really share the same level of passion for the game as he does. I like it and am always captivated by the spectacle, but take me to the theatre any day and I am just like my father at a Rugby match. Without the whooping that is.

After many years of not going to any Rugby matches with my father I thought it was about time for us to revisit something we had always done when I was a kid. So I went online and I got us some tickets to the upcoming Wallabies v All Blacks match in July.

I go onto the website, select the match and order the two tickets. I click next and go to the checkout. $280.

What?!

$140 per ticket, to not even sit near the half way line. In fact, we are down near the goal posts. Bloody miles away.

$140 for that?! And thousands of people pay this? In fact 83,500 people pay between $79 and $164 for tickets to a Wallabies match. We are talking about approximately $8 million in ticket sales alone. For one day.

Suddenly I find myself harking back for the days when that beautiful game was amateur... and cheaper.

Or maybe just harking for something that's the price of a theatre ticket. Who's the fool that said theatre was expensive? What rubbish.

Pick a night, any night this week and compare the prices between thirty blokes running around on grass with a football and some damn fine theatre.

$20 online ticket special to see the STC's Serpent's Teeth HERE.
$29 to see Toby Schmitz giving it his all at Belvoir St HERE.
$26 for a Beer, laksa and a show at the Old Fitzroy HERE.
$28 for D Reserve tickets to the Ballet HERE.
$30 for some comedy at the Darlinghurst Theatre HERE.

And you could see all of that in one week and still get change from one ticket to the Rugby.

Theatre affordability? It already is. (And there aren't any 'no alcohol areas')

Exclusive: Cut backs start at the Sydney Opera House

In what is the first sign that inflation and a looming recession has started to affect Australian arts organisations, the Sydney Opera House has already instructed managers to remove at least one staff member from each department of the organisation.

"In some cases, where people have left or are leaving, many managers are just choosing not to fill the position again," a Sydney Opera House source has told Sydney Arts Journo*.

A general staff meeting was held late last month where the new management team addressed the staff body.

"Morale is pretty low at the moment and many people are already looking around for other employment opportunities," they said.

But staff at the Opera House could be disappointed as arts organisations across the country have to tighten their belts now that the effects of the US recession have started to trickle down into the Australian economy.

The cumulative impact of interest rate rises and sharp increases in food and petrol has meant that the spending power of many people is substantially lessened across the board.

The Federal Government, who is due to hand down its budget on Tuesday night, will also reduce spending on the arts as it too tries to tighten its belt across portfolios.

The Australia Council has already promised that any cuts will not impact on arts funding and instead will be directed at slimming down the organisation's administrative costs.

But State Governments will surely not be as conscientious and will just pull arts funding and put it elsewhere. Community arts organisations will be the first to really feel the pinch.

The next twelve months are going to be pretty tough across the country and eventually arts organisations are going to have to decide between cutting programmes or administrative costs. We have seen the Opera House's first step and it will be interesting to see whether it will go another.

I will be covering the 2008/09 Budget next Tuesday for Crikey with an arts wrap published on Wednesday. It should be an interesting year and it won't be a question of whether the ALP will cut arts funding - but rather how much they will cut it by.


*SMH Eds - when you write about this, just use 'Sydney Arts Journo' to explain where the story came from.

2020 Breakaway Group Itching to Fight Garrett

As first published in Crikey.

So incensed are the delegates that attended the Creative Australia strand of the 2020 summit, they are now forming an advocacy group from within to keep a check on the Federal Government.

What's angered the delegates to this point? The censorship of ideas within the Initial Summit Report, which have been replaced by other ideas that were never discussed.

"We got hints this was going to happen when the statement which came out bore no relation to what came from us," one delegate tells Crikey, "It is clear that it came from a pre-existing agenda."

Many of the delegates are still holding their tongues until the final report, which is due out in a few weeks. But that hasn’t stopped the delegates exchanging contact details and setting cyberspace alight with emails, proposals and furious debate about what to do if their real recommendations continue to be ignored.

Some of the ideas put forward by the delegates that have so far been gone missing include:

- The formation of an organisation to work with planners, developers and architects to ensure that good design is a core requirement for every building and public space

- To help develop a design-literate nation by including aesthetics/design as part of the school curriculum and by forming closer links between industry professionals and schools

- To promote creative organisations overseas as soft diplomacy and to assist in advocating with exports like education and business

- Remove barriers and bureaucratic red tape to make funding models and reporting requirements easier

- Increased support for new digital media technologies

- Mandate 80% quota for Australian content by broadcasters in digital delivery with a five-fold increase in support of public broadcasting as a brand for quality with distinctive Australian content

- Develop a whole of industry national screen strategy with government taking culture out of the US Free Trade Agreement

What has amazed the delegates is that the initial report somehow changed ideas like develop "closer links between industry professionals and schools" into "Creativity Summer Schools".

"No-one ever mentioned summer schools," Crikey has been told by another delegate. "And the first time I heard about the Indigenous proposals was when the report was released on the Sunday."

This is not to mention the contentious idea (also published in the initial report) which proposed that creative endeavours be funded "through a 1% creative dividend from all Government Departments for expenditure".

"Everyone in that room knew that Queensland had tried that idea and that it had failed. I don’t know how that got put forward either," the delegate explained.

"I went to the summit with an open mind," another stated. "But every now and again Peter Garrett would come up to each of the groups saying he didn't need to listen to us because he had total faith in us. My scepticism rose each time he said it."

Another delegate added that, "I don't believe that he [Garrett] is bearing ill will and I do think he genuinely wants to listen. But this is compromised by political ambition and his essential powerlessness within the ALP. I wish we had a smarter arts minister."

If 2020 was just a publicity exercise as some commentators have suggested, then the Federal Government may get a lot more than it bargained for.

"The summit has created a motivated group of diverse people who realised that we all have a lot in common," another attendee has told Crikey. "Everyone realised that other people outside the stream were saying they needed the arts."

If the make-up of the advocacy group is anything like the chosen delegates then there should be concern within the arts community at the real lack of practising artists. Almost all of the attendees were from funded institutions and the corporate sector, with gaping holes around music and new media.

Either way, 2020 provided a rare opportunity for the often fragmented Australian arts community to unite and share ideas. Let's just hope that Garrett’s short-staffed and over-worked arts advisers are on their toes because after eleven years of suffocation, the industry is more than determined to get some real results through Government policy.