Thursday, 17 December 2015
The new multi-million pound venue for the London Symphony Orchestra is surprisingly old fashioned and may disrupt the delicate ecology of London’s musical life, says Ivan Hewett.
With an average of 40% of theatre seats still empty, theatres need to ask themselves if spending money chasing contributed income is always the wisest policy, says David Brownlee.
Wednesday, 16 December 2015
Thomas Marks criticises the BBC’s decision to report the purchase of top art by universities as ‘furnishing’.
Tuesday, 15 December 2015
Alva Noë argues that being bored by art is a good thing – it means that art actually has the power to disrupt, and that the viewer has been forced outside of their comfort zone.
Wednesday, 09 December 2015
Being forced to perform in new or shared spaces may be a frustrating financial necessity for many theatres, says Lyn Gardner, but it’ll do wonders for their artistic output.
Is refusing to have any artistic association with a foreign government justified, or does boycotting just create unnecessary divisions between creatives? Brian Eno and Tiffany Jenkins weigh in on the debate.
David Brownlee explains why reduced public funding has not shackled theatre, with contributed income, earned income and overall income up from 2009/10.
Tuesday, 08 December 2015
The recent failure to programme gender-balanced work at Dublin’s Abbey Theatre is not the only problem for women in Irish theatre, says Emer O'Toole – the whole nation’s canon is dominated by white male voices.
Friday, 04 December 2015
How do arts organisations attract donations from corporate sponsors? Dalya Alberge explores various techniques, such as offering dinners on stage or walk-on roles in films.
Thursday, 03 December 2015
Claire Willet uses the example of Portland to explain why, when ticket-sales are king, challenging work rarely finds the space to develop. She shares her ideas for what venues could do to change this.
Lyn Gardner asks for theatres engaging in live screenings to have a proper dialogue with the companies affected and the arts council. Theatre’s vibrant ecology needs them all to thrive together.
Tuesday, 01 December 2015
Arts subjects – in which there are no right answers – help students to deal with uncertainty. So we must protect arts education at all costs, writes headmaster Peter Green.
Shellen Lubin examines theatre’s continuing gender inequality problem, questioning why change has not yet taken place and what immediate action should be taken.
Sam Freeman asks people working in the arts to attach less importance to ‘hard work’ and to instead take the time to find out how they can work more efficiently and happily.
What are the most common misconceptions held by fundraisers? Howard Lake identifies five and challenges them with statistics.
Monday, 30 November 2015
Philanthropists Rory and Elizabeth Brooks discuss their reasons for supporting arts and cultural institutions and why they believe Tate is “at the top of the tree”.
Friday, 27 November 2015
When applying for funding through Grants for the Arts, theatres are routinely advised to focus on the social, rather than artistic benefits of their work. This must change, says Rebecca Atkinson-Lord.
Strict rules on who can applying for particular pots of funding are blocking innovative approaches to how companies can be set up and run, says Thomas Hescott.
Thursday, 26 November 2015
The Spending Review may have seemed like good news for the arts, says Mark Robinson, but cuts to local authority budgets mean that dark times could still be ahead.
Tuesday, 24 November 2015
Joseph Young reports on Artquest’s talk about fair pay for artists, finding the media representation of artists and the quality of so-called artistic ‘opportunities’ serious obstacles to real progress on pay.