Madam, – In his article about theatre companies sharing resources (The Arts, June 4th) Peter Crawley writes “Touring theatre has all but diminished into a trickle of one person shows or international franchises about motherhood and menopause.” I would like to point out that, in the absence of an Arts Council policy on touring, companies such as Druid, Livin’ Dred, the Gate (with its recent Godot tour), artists such as Donal O’Kelly and networks such as NASC and Nomad and a small number of others at least try to keep the touring flag flying.
From 1982 to 2000, when Druid was directly funded to tour, the company visited more than 100 communities throughout Ireland, some up to a dozen times. When this funding was withdrawn in 2000 large swathes of the audiences we had nurtured were ignored. The arts centres and theatres nationwide, many newly built, were left starved of mainstream productions. At least in the past few years working with the NASC network of venues – funded by the Arts Council – Druid has managed to get back to some level of basic touring, giving 191 performances in 2008 and 2009.
But this is at best an ad hoc and inadequate response to a fundamental need for touring theatre. The theatre in Ireland is funded by all taxpayers and Druid passionately believes people have a right to see first class professional theatre without having to travel long distances outside their own communities on every occasion. We also know that the privilege of playing in those communities has helped us grow both as individual artists and as a company.
The Arts Council undertook a €2 million, two-year action research project, The Touring Experiment, in order to shape and inform a new policy on arts touring in Ireland. Not only has no new policy emerged, but the report – presented to the Arts Council in September 2008 – has yet to see the light of day. For those of us who are committed to touring and who actively participated in this research and, for audiences throughout the country, I suggest this is just simply not good enough. – Yours, etc,