Powys County Council close Theatr Powys
“We must learn never to be surprised, but always reserve the right to be shocked”
Geoff Gillham, Playwright and pedagogue
15th March 2011: This morning, the Board of Powys County Council met to decide the future of Theatr Powys.
The meeting was intended to be held in private session, but the pressure of 25 members of public waiting outside and the 1000+ signatories to a second petition in support of Theatr Powys led to the chamber being unexpectedly opened for the historic vote: the fate of the 8 employees was finally revealed and 4 decades of Powys’ continuous support for original, high-quality theatre and Theatre-in-Education produced by Theatr Powys was ended.
On the 29th June last year the Arts Council of Wales withdrew the entirety of its Revenue Funding to the company. This morning the PCC Board rubber-stamped an earlier ‘Cabinet’ decision to run a skeleton arts provision, but this will bear no qualitative resemblance to the excellent work of the past 38 years.
As a former Theatr Powys company member, former Mid Powys Youth Theatre member and one of the founders of the Campaign 4 Creativity I was shocked by the ease with which the Board made its decision.
We sat in the Council Chamber watching the sparse debate, it rapidly became clear that not all of the Councillors voting on this decision thoroughly understood the implications of the options before them. The debate did not focus on the quality of provision to be provided at tax-payers’ expense.
Councillors spoke of how the ‘unfathomable’ ACW decision last summer had been taken in an unjust and despicable manner; questions were raised as to why a new building was provided for the company 4 years ago at a cost of £750,000 in ACW Lottery funding only for them now to pull the plug.
Having followed the ACW lead, and sealing the company’s fate, councillors then questioned whether their alternative, as yet intangible model will sit closely enough in line with current ACW policy for funding work with young people. Such considerations were rejected for today; wisely in my opinion. For any local authority to base its policy upon the fickle and didactic beast that is ACW would be foolhardy.
After many platitudes from around the chamber, and a brief summation from the Portfolio holder for the Arts, a show of hands made concrete the redundancies and closed the only professional producing theatre company in the County.
Lies By Yevgeny Yevtushenko (1952) Translated by Robin Milner-Gulland and Peter Levi
Lying to the young is wrong.
Proving to them that lies are true is wrong.
Telling them
that God’s in his heaven
and all’s well with the world
is wrong.
They know what you mean.
They are people too.
Tell them the difficulties
can’t be counted,
and let them see
not only
what will be
but see
with clarity
these present times.
Say obstacles exist they must encounter,
sorrow comes,
hardship happens.
The hell with it.
Who never knew
the price of happiness
will not be happy.
Forgive no error
you recognize,
it will repeat itself,
a hundredfold
and afterward
our pupils
will not forgive in us
what we forgave.
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Comment by Michael Chadwick on March 21, 2011 at 0:15
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Received from the Campaign 4 Creativity in Mid-Wales
Tuesday March 15th 2011
To All Concerned,
The Arts Council of Wales (ACW), Investment Revue is finished. Nick Capaldi, Chief Executive of ACW, has celebrated a “tough but fair” approach to future arts investment, which will supposedly develop the best and most “flexible” cultural provision. As these announcements are made it is clear that UK-wide, all future public provision will be subject to a dangerous and socially catastrophic gamble.
Theatr Powys, based at the Drama Centre in Llandrindod, is one casualty of the review process. The withdrawal of ACW funding has jeopardised local authority partnership funding and led to further cutbacks by Powys County Council. As of April 4th all current company members will be made redundant. An innovative theatre company with a remarkable forty-year history will be shut down.
For some time now Theatr Powys has been unique in Wales. Central to its practice has been a theatre in education provision. This has been offered to every school, in Welsh and English, for free at the point of delivery. The company has also managed a year-round young people’s theatre group, and produced an annual community tour for village halls, theatres and arts centres all over Powys and throughout Wales. No less crucial to its community is the company’s vast resource of costumes and technical support, which is consistently called upon by schools, colleges, universities, community groups, and fellow theatre companies.
The ACW decision represents the final liquidation in Wales of a tried, tested, and proven post-war art form: that of Theatre in Education. Those who have witnessed it in Powys recognise its importance. However, Dai Smith, the Chair of the Arts Council of Wales, has claimed publicly that TIE is outmoded. Worse, an argument has been proposed that TIE is not art at all. This is preposterous, and the formal separation of drama, theatre and social education contained in the argument is deeply damaging. There is a long and authentic history and a skilled current practice, both in Wales and internationally, that utterly contradicts this ill-informed, ignorant and reductive view.
In our opinion the theatre and drama practice of Theatr Powys has been an invaluable resource to the communities of Wales. The company has maintained a steadfast commitment to their artistic beliefs, and inspired countless audience members through theatre and drama. Their work has helped young people to engage intellectually, emotionally and actively with the world in a way rarely achieved in the course of their broader educational and cultural experiences.
The Arts Council of Wales, up until 2010, has consistently made clear their shared belief in the value of the Company’s provision. In their own annual review in 2009 they clearly stated that: ‘The value of Theatr Powys to the community at large and young people in particular is very evident and is testimony to the vision, hard work and commitment of all involved in the company.’ It seems that the ACW members have since inexplicably (and hypocritically) decided to contradict themselves.
Theatr Powys’s deeply rooted and integrated provision will be impossible to recreate in the future. Sporadically programmed “Night Out” performances will not fill the material and spiritual void left by the disappearance of Theatr Powys and neither will the occasional live theatre event in presenting houses spaced fifty-four miles apart.
We have no illusions whatsoever. The future ACW strategy has been decreed and Powys County Council has finished what the ACW began. But as professionals with direct experience of the company’s work, we wish to register our profound opposition to the engineered closure of Theatr Powys. We write on behalf of thousands of voiceless children and young people and all of those in the wider community, whose dismay, anger and protest is being entirely frustrated by the calm and reasoned arguments of those who support this “flexible” future vision.
Signed
David Ian Rabey Professor of Drama and Theatre Studies UW Aberystwyth
Charmian Savill Tutor in Theatre Studies UW Aberystwyth
Roger Wooster Senior Lecturer Performing Arts UW Newport
Sera Moore Williams Playwright & Director;
Teaching Fellow University of Glamor
Hillary Morris Head Teacher Gladestry Primary School, Powys
Tyler Keevil Novelist;
Lecturer in Creative Writing University of Gloucestershire
Chris Cooper Playwright;
Artistic Director Big Brum Theatre Company
Mary Compton Teacher; Joint Divisional Secretary Powys NUT;
Past National President NUT
David Saunders Parent, Participant; Audience Member;
Campaign for Creativity in Mid Wales
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