A post where I ramble about arts funding a bit and don’t come to much of a conclusion.
Just over a week ago, my friend Kirsty shared this article about the inequality of arts funding. It’s from 2012, but a topic seems to be in the air at the moment, because three core truths are still in evidence:
- There is little to no money available to small/regional theatre groups.
- People want to be paid fairly for the work they do.
- People deserve to be paid fairly for the work they do.
And the problem with these truths is that you can’t sustain a system in which all three are in effect. Either: people have to stop wanting payment for performance work, which isn’t going to happen; or, those with the money have to decide who deserves the money available, but the only tenable position here is “everybody”, since all participants in a project contribute to the final project, and “nobody” will just push people out of theatre and such to the inevitable attrition of will and energy worrying about how to feed, clothe and house yourself has on anybody; or, somehow, more money has to come into the system.
jamesdavidward.com 