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Ats Council Wales withdraws Funds for Gwent Theatre

Wednesday 14th July 2010

On the 29^th June the Board of Gwent Theatre reacted with incredulity to the announcement from ACW chairman Dai Smith that Gwent Theatre was one of the casualties in the list of revenue funded arts organisations in . Nearly a week has past and the utter disbelief is still with us.

It is not simply a reduction in ACW funding – it is a complete withdrawal of funding. It will almost certainly spell the end for Gwent Theatre after more than 30 years providing much needed Theatre in Education to the Greater Gwent area. We have served Monmouthshire, Blaenau Gwent, Caerphilly, Newport and Torfaen, some of these areas with high levels of deprivation. It has taken years to build up good working relations in all these regions.

Large organisations which have suffered cuts may survive but, for a small company like ours, the loss of £250,000 a year probably means winding up. Particularly galling is the fact that in terms of the overall budget the ACW funding for Gwent Theatre is peanuts.

It will mean that our small core company of 6 people: actors, stage manager, educational and administrative staff will all lose their jobs. Some of them have been with the company for twenty or more years and have delivered work of the highest quality throughout our region.

There will also be a significant reduction in employment opportunities for actors, script writers, musicians, poets and story-tellers who will also lose out when the cuts take effect. Gwent Theatre employs up to 40 people in any one year.

But worst of all will be the loss of Theatre in Education fore the pupils and young people in our schools. In 2009 – 2010 Gwent Theatre delivered 220 performances to 14,213 young people in 219 schools. In addition, it held 81 theatre workshops with 2559 participants. And the highly acclaimed Gwent Young People’s Theatre put on seven productions, with 5183 youth theatre attendances and audience figures of 1,794. That is an outstanding delivery of work in a single year.

We believe that our Theatre has established itself as a successful company which takes its excellent work into the schools and communities of Gwent – more than fulfilling ACW’s strategy which puts ‘transformation of experience, individual and communal at its heart.’

The Board of Directors at this stage is at a loss to understand how ACW can have arrived at its decision. We have arranged a meeting with the Council in the middle of this month and we have tabled a number of serious questions for them to consider. We are hoping that the answers to those questions will help us to understand the reasoning behind their decision and what, if any, future there is for Gwent Theatre.

GREGG TAYLOR     (Chairman of the Board)

Contact telephone numbers                          E mail addresses                                

Gwent Theatre       01873 851334                 gwenttie@uwclub.net

Gregg Taylor         01495 764448                  gtaylorqc@btinternet.com

Released at 15:11 on 14/07/2010 | Permalink