Arts Council Grant Saves Donmar

The Arts Council of England (ACE) announced Friday the allocation of its £184.6m grant in aid for 1998/99 to directly funded arts organisations and the ten Regional Arts Boards. This represents a cut of £1.5m on the current year's total and heralds what outgoing ACE chairman Lord Gowrie has called 'the worst revenue crisis of my adult lifetime' in the arts.

Large, nationally funded companies suffered the most in the austerity drive, in particular the South Bank Centre (which encompasses concert venue the Royal Festival Hall) whose £13.3m grant was cut by more than £112,000. The Royal Ballet's £6.56m was trimmed by £100,000; the Birmingham Royal Ballet's £5.47m by £54,720; the Royal Opera's £7.99m by £39,970. The National Theatre, Royal Shakespeare Company and English National Opera have maintained their standstill funding. Although overall, cutbacks were not as severe as some expected, many performing arts companies will struggle to stay afloat without further funding assistance.

As a bright spot in the funding cutbacks, the usually un-subsidised Donmar Warehouse was awarded a one-off £150,000 grant which has saved it from possible closure. Late in 1997, the renowned London fringe venue was thrown into financial crisis when its corporate sponsor Mercury pulled out of its 5-year sponsorship package following a merger with MCI. Last week, American playwright Stephen Sondheim penned an empassioned appeal to save the Donmar in London's Evening Standard writing that 'of all the non-commercial theatres we have off-Broadway, not one surpasses the Donmar in terms of quality and variety.'

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