The Gap in the Fence: Austerity Cuts, Retrenchment and European Theatre’s Wake-up Call

As the world well knows, austerity cuts in Europe mean that small-to-medium theatre companies are facing an uncertain future, to the extent that the golden age of funding is coming to an end. But has the theatre this funding has produced been golden in itself? And are Europeans turning a drama into...

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Main Author: Freeman, John
Format: Journal Article
Published: University of Bologna 2013
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/44596
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author Freeman, John
author_facet Freeman, John
author_sort Freeman, John
building Curtin Institutional Repository
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description As the world well knows, austerity cuts in Europe mean that small-to-medium theatre companies are facing an uncertain future, to the extent that the golden age of funding is coming to an end. But has the theatre this funding has produced been golden in itself? And are Europeans turning a drama into a crisis when they use the term “austerity”? This paper puts forward the provocative argument that subsidy is as likely to suppress innovative theatre as it is to support it and that, perhaps, theatre functions best as an outlaw genre, free from public control masquerading as support.
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spelling curtin-20.500.11937-445962017-09-13T14:14:26Z The Gap in the Fence: Austerity Cuts, Retrenchment and European Theatre’s Wake-up Call Freeman, John austerity theatre public funding crisis As the world well knows, austerity cuts in Europe mean that small-to-medium theatre companies are facing an uncertain future, to the extent that the golden age of funding is coming to an end. But has the theatre this funding has produced been golden in itself? And are Europeans turning a drama into a crisis when they use the term “austerity”? This paper puts forward the provocative argument that subsidy is as likely to suppress innovative theatre as it is to support it and that, perhaps, theatre functions best as an outlaw genre, free from public control masquerading as support. 2013 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/44596 10.6092/issn.2039-2281/3697 University of Bologna fulltext
spellingShingle austerity
theatre
public funding
crisis
Freeman, John
The Gap in the Fence: Austerity Cuts, Retrenchment and European Theatre’s Wake-up Call
title The Gap in the Fence: Austerity Cuts, Retrenchment and European Theatre’s Wake-up Call
title_full The Gap in the Fence: Austerity Cuts, Retrenchment and European Theatre’s Wake-up Call
title_fullStr The Gap in the Fence: Austerity Cuts, Retrenchment and European Theatre’s Wake-up Call
title_full_unstemmed The Gap in the Fence: Austerity Cuts, Retrenchment and European Theatre’s Wake-up Call
title_short The Gap in the Fence: Austerity Cuts, Retrenchment and European Theatre’s Wake-up Call
title_sort gap in the fence: austerity cuts, retrenchment and european theatre’s wake-up call
topic austerity
theatre
public funding
crisis
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/44596