“Four of the UK’s biggest cultural institutions have had their funding reduced by Arts Council England as the body seeks to spread its money more evenly across the capital and invest in smaller companies,” reports Tim Bano in Tuesday’s (6/27) The Stage (U.K.). “The National Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Royal Opera House and the Southbank Centre will all lose 3% of their national portfolio organization grant throughout the next funding period, which runs from 2018 to 2022. Following the cuts the NT will receive £66.8 million over the four years from 2018, while the RSC will receive £59.9 million. The ROH will get £96.1 million in total, with the Southbank Centre receiving £73.4 million. ACE’s director of theatre Neil Darlison explained that the reductions to the NT, Southbank Centre and ROH will allow funding for other London-based companies to remain the same and … smaller, London-based companies added to the portfolio include Chris Goode and Company, the Yard Theatre in Hackney and Yellow Earth Theatre Company. … Arts Council chair Nicholas Serota said the organization was fulfilling ‘three key promises’: to shift investment outside London, to broaden the portfolio in order to reach places that have received ‘relatively little’ funding from ACE in the past, and to fund ‘more diverse and more diverse-led’ organizations.”
Posted June 29, 2017
