Towards a Civic Theatre

Dan Hutton

• Publisher: Salamander Street Ltd.
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781913630942
• eBook ISBN: 9781913630935
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Theatre

It's easy to blame the difficulties theatre now faces on the longest shutdown of stages since the mid-seventeenth century. But these problems began some time before a global pandemic. Decades of free market ideas, ten years of austerity, and the slow encroachment of private space have all worked together to create an industry struggling to define its purpose. The virus was a symptom, not the cause.

In T owards A Civic Theatre, director Dan Hutton argues that a theatre which isn't civic in outlook is not worth fighting for. Full of ideas and provocations from a range of theatre practitioners, and drawing on examples from inside and outside of the performing arts, it makes the case for a new kind of theatre fit for purpose in an already tumultuous twenty-first century. It is a toolkit, a guide, an offer to audiences and a call to arms for artistic leaders of tomorrow.

NOTES

Epigraphs

1 Joan Littlewood, Joan’s Book, (London: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, 2016), p.16.

2 “civic”, Oxford English Dictionary (Third Edition), Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.

Introduction

1 Peter Brook (1968), The Empty Space (London: Penguin Modern Classics, 2008), p.12.

2 Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, “Enactments of Power: The Politics of Performance Space,” The Drama Review (1997), p.13.

A Civic(s) Lesson

1 Tommy Walters, “Playwright Jeremy O. Harris doesn’t miss ‘theater in a building’”, CANVAS, August 23, 2020, pbs.org/newshour/arts/playwright-jeremy-o-harris-doesnt-miss-theater-in-a-building.

2 Serendipitously, the corona civis was a crown of oak leaves given to someone who saved a fellow citizen in battle during the days of the Roman Republic.

3 “The Queen’s Theatre In Hornchurch Still Sparkles At 60,” Essex Life, August 28, 2013, essexlifemag.co.uk/out-about/places/the-queen-stheatre-in-hornchurch-still-sparkles-at-60-1-2357091.

4 Rethinking Relationships, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (UK Branch), 2017, p.11, content.gulbenkian.pt/wp-content/uploads/sites/18/2017/10/01175116/Civic-Role-of-Arts-Phase-1-REPORT-lr-.pdf.

5 In a beautiful pamphlet produced by the CGF, entitled ‘What would Joan Littlewood say?’ a number of arts leaders reflect on how their institutions might explore their civic responsibilities. In a preface, the document’s editor Lyn Gardner talks of the need for our museums, galleries and theatres to be “new town squares”. Kwame Kwei-Armah of the Young Vic suggests that “there is no better way of challenging government than standing on the ground of our civic responsibility and showing that our theatres are there to serve everyone, in every way”. Madani Younis describes how a long-term commitment to community meant that the Bush Theatre (where he used to be artistic director) was seen as a trusted organisation in the wake of the Grenfell Tower disaster. He then goes on to argue that “civic responsibility is about an acknowledgement that we are complicit in shaping and redefining our cities and the decisions we make now as cultural organisations will shape the future of the city”. Why don’t we hear more about these approaches, though? Why has it taken a pandemic for theatre to begin facing up to its problems? As Kully Thiarai, creative director of Leeds 2023, notes: “there is a disconnect between the work made and how we communicate to the public about it”.

6 William Smith, A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (London: John Murray, 1890).

7 David Wiles, Greek Theatre Performance: An Introduction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).

8 Bharata Muni, The Nāṭyaśāstra, trans. Manomohan Ghosh, (Calcutta: Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1951).

9 Square brackets inputted by translator.

10 Percy MacKaye. The Civic Theatre in Relation to the Redemption of Leisure, (New York: Mitchell Kennerley, 1912), p.15.

11 Ibid, p.198.

12 Ibid, p.196.

13 Ibid, p.197.

14 Stephen Hetherington, The Interdependence of Public and Private Finance in British Theatre, (Manchester: Arts Council England, 2015), p.35.

15 MacKaye, p.91.

16 Ibid, p.40.

17 Ibid, p.23.

18 “Central Bedfordshire Council News And Press Releases,” Central-bedfordshire.gov.uk, September 26, 2019, centralbedfordshire.gov.uk/news/article/170/leighton_buzzard_library_and_theatre_goes_back_to_the_70s_with_ruby_anniversary_celebrations.

A Short History

1 House of Commons, February 25 1985, vol 74 cc147–54 (Clement Freud MP), api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1985/feb/25/national-theatre.

2 The Arts Council Of Great Britain – 1st Annual Report 1945, p.6.

3 “Our History,” Arts Council England, artscouncil.org.uk/our-organisation/our-history.

4 The Arts Council Of Great Britain – 1st Annual Report 1945, p.23.

5 Noel Dempsey, Arts Funding: Statistics, Briefing Paper Number CBP 7655 (London: House of Commons Library, 2016), pp.18–21.

6 “Arts Council’s Budget Cut By 30%,” BBC News, October 20, 2010, bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-11582070.

7 Arts Council England Annual Review 2009 (London: The Stationery Office, 2009), p.6.

8 Arts Council England Grant-in-Aid and National Lottery Distribution Annual Report & Accounts 2018–19 (London: APS Group, 2019), p.14.

9 Adele Redmond, “‘Dire Circumstances’ For Arts Funding,” Arts Professional, February 7, 2020, artsprofessi...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Epigraphs
• Introduction
• A Civic(s) Lesson
• A Short History
• Place
• Space
• Welcome
• Audiences
• Artists
• A Way Forward
• Acknowledgements
• Notes