The departing artistic director of the National Theatre of Scotland has warned that the company and the wider Scottish theatre sector are under threat of deepening cuts in their funding.
Speaking to the Sunday Herald at the Europe Theatre Prize event in Craiova, Romania, where the NTS received a coveted 'New Realities' award for its first 10 years of work, Laurie Sansom said Scottish theatre is facing a "tough" financial future.
The director shocked the Scottish theatre community last month when he announced suddenly that he will be leaving his post of artistic director and chief executive of the NTS at the end of June after three years.
The company's executive producer Neil Murray and associate director Graham McLaren are also leaving to become joint directors of the Abbey Theatre, Ireland's national theatre, ahead of the NTS's move to its new, £6.5 million Rockvilla headquarters in the north of Glasgow.
Sansom warned that the three per cent cut to the NTS budget announced in the Scottish Government's 2016/17 financial settlement is likely to be a sign of dangerous times ahead.
"My sense is, and the indication is, that [further] cuts will be coming down the pipeline and they will be greater than anything we have experienced this year. That's going to be tough", he said.
In December's Budget the Scottish Government announced overall culture spend would drop from £170.2million to £154.1million for 2016/17, with grant cuts affecting the NTS, Scottish Opera, RSNO, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Scottish Ballet and the National Galleries and National Museums of Scotland, as well as main arts funder, Creative Scotland.
Drew McFarlane, national organiser for Scotland and Northern Ireland for industry union Equity, said: "The question is why is the arts continually seen as the soft underbelly when it comes to cuts."
Matthew Zajac, artistic director of Inverness-based Dogstar Theatre Company, said there was a problem in the UK with a "general resistance" to the idea of the arts being essential in public spending.
He said: "In Scandinavia, Germany and France historically arts funding has been around 1% of public expenditure, whereas in Britain it has been 0.6% or less, and that includes galleries, libraries and the rest of it. That has been the case for decades.
"I think it is a shame we have not had a really radical leader in politics as far as culture is concerned."
READ MORE: Artistic Director leaves National Theatre of Scotland after three years
Zara Kitson, culture spokeswoman for the Scottish Green Party, said: "The arts have all too often been seen as an easy option for cuts by successive Governments. That approach is a false economy, and communities lose out...The cuts we've seen to national arts organisations, and passed on to local government - resulting in cuts to the arts locally, are detrimental and must be reversed."
The Scottish Government was unable to comment on Sansom's concerns about funding due to Holyrood election rules, but referred the Sunday Herald to its previous statement, following the announcement of the 2016/17 arts budgets.
The statement put much of the cut in arts funding down to funds having already been released for capital projects, such as Rockvilla.
It also insisted that the SNP administration was, "doing all we can.. to ensure our diverse and evolving cultural scene and rich heritage continue to thrive."
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