The Stage

Keep the faith

Published Monday 4 January 2010 at 16:35

It was gratifying to see that the last few weeks of the noughties were distinguished by critics and commentators on radio, television and in the press recording what they perceived to be the healthy state of theatre in the UK. Even David Edgar felt able to praise the number of new plays which were being presented on main stages.

It was disappointing, therefore, to find that the sole voice of doom was from Equity (front page, December 10) who claimed that there was a “fairly serious collapse” in the number of working weeks available to actors for in-house productions in the regions. Equity admits that its survey was limited and that they do not know if there has been a reduction in “activity overall”. A wider view might suggest that the opposite is true.

I am a trustee of English Touring Theatre. ETT has increased its employment of actors from 419 actor weeks in 2008 to 624 in 2009. In part, this has been made possible by co-producing with regional producing houses. The net result being that mounting costs are shared and the length of actors contracts is much increased - the actor weeks quoted above are in addition to substantial runs at the co-producing venues. So, far from reducing employment opportunities, touring and co-production allows a larger proportion of limited production budgets to be spent on engaging actors.

There is no doubt that the arts will be under great financial pressure in the next few years and it is important that we present accurate information and a united front in order to make the most of the success story of the last decade.

AK Bennett-Hunter

Email supplied