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A £5.5 MILLION increase in its drama budget was announced yesterday by the Scottish Arts Council, as the organisation set about the task of providing an infrastructure for a national theatre in Scotland. However, the SAC meeting at the Royal Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh was disrupted by protesters from the Theatre Workshop, which champions the work of disabled actors. Among the major beneficiaries of the funding were Dundee Rep, ending months of speculation over the theatre’s future. It received an award of £626,000, almost doubling its annual SAC grant. Others winning additional funding included Theatre Babel, who were awarded £125,000 after controversially missing out on fixed-term touring funding last summer. Theatre Workshop received an inflationary increase of 2.01 per cent, to take its funding to £126,000, but that didn’t satisfy its supporters. Protesters spent several minutes shouting and rattling cans and the SAC was forced to reconvene in another room. Robert Rae, artistic director of Theatre Workshop, contrasted the treatment of the group with other core-funded institutions, such as the Traverse Theatre, whose £573,200 was equivalent to a 21 per cent rise. "This is from an arts council which has declared social inclusion a major priority," said Mr Rae. "It is a derisory sum. "The protesters were acting in a way in which civil rights activists have acted for years," he added. In addition to annual funding from the SAC, Theatre Workshop receives a three-year lottery grant of £350,000 to develop the company, as well as funds from the SAC advancement programme. David Taylor, SAC’s head of drama, said: "We felt it was premature to give a significant uplift to the company. They are halfway through a very interesting project, and this will be reviewed in the autumn." The increase in the drama budget is an attempt to raise the quality of the theatre sector ahead of the establishment of a Scottish National Theatre. On Monday, culture minister Mike Watson announced an increase in funding for the SAC, to enable the production of national theatre plays in 2004. The funds for Dundee Rep will help safeguard the future of the 14-strong permanent company, which has been acclaimed since its 1999 launch. The Byre Theatre in St Andrews received £315,300, an increase of 90 per cent on this year’s funding. The theatre has been attracting 95 per cent capacity audiences since its lottery-funded refurbishment project a year ago. The Arches in Glasgow was another major beneficiary, its grant increased 400 per cent from £25,000 to £126,000. The city’s Tron theatre also received a substantial increase, from £261,277 to £401,600. Mr Taylor said: "The experiment being undertaken with the company at Dundee Rep has been acclaimed across Scotland, and we’d like to see that continue in partnership with the local authority. "Theatre Babel was next on the list when we decided the fixed-term touring awards. We are pleased to be able to make that decision now." Drama was the only area in the SAC’s £55 million budget to receive a funding increase. However, Angus Farquhar’s NVA organisation received an additional £45,000 from the SAC’s contingency fund. |
| The Scotsman web site: www.news.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=111082002 |
| Mike Wade and Susan Mansfield e-mail: |
Wednesday, January 30, 2002 |
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