Yes, says Rebecca Atkinson-Lord, the funding environment is hostile – but artists must not compromise their integrity by readily and uncritically accepting corporate donations.
Talking to a colleague in New York recently, I mentioned how important it was to me that the work I directed had the potential to change the world, however incrementally. It’s central to me to leave the audience thinking, feeling or acting differently: to give them a gift that they can carry out of the theatre into the wider world. It’s a feeling I recognise in many theatre-makers of my generation; an instinctive activism that marks our work indelibly.
For my American friend though, my assumption that theatre and the arts are implicitly tools for change was a strange one. In his ecology, the possibility of activating an audience, of sending them out into the world changed and empowered, is seen as dangerous and risky, potentially alienating the private funders who form the financial bedrock of the US theatre landscape... Keep reading on The Guardian
Talking to a colleague in New York recently, I mentioned how important it was to me that the work I directed had the potential to change the world, however incrementally. It’s central to me to leave the audience thinking, feeling or acting differently: to give them a gift that they can carry out of the theatre into the wider world. It’s a feeling I recognise in many theatre-makers of my generation; an instinctive activism that marks our work indelibly.
For my American friend though, my assumption that theatre and the arts are implicitly tools for change was a strange one. In his ecology, the possibility of activating an audience, of sending them out into the world changed and empowered, is seen as dangerous and risky, potentially alienating the private funders who form the financial bedrock of the US theatre landscape... Keep reading on The Guardian