2023-12-27 21:00:09
SERGIO AQUINDO
In 2024, subsidized live entertainment is set to lead a small revolution. The issue lies in a managerial slogan: “Produce better, distribute better”. This is the name of the new plan which will be presented, in January 2024, by the Ministry of Culture to the social partners (unions and professional organizations). Based on the observation of a growing imbalance between excess production and insufficient distribution, the Minister of Culture, Rima Abdul Malak, intends “rebuild the system” to give it back “more virtuous”. “The deployment of the Better Production, Better Dissemination plan will constitute the major direction of ministerial policy for the artistic creation sector”indicate the budget documents, and will concern “all fields of live performance”theater, dance, circus, puppetry arts, opera, orchestras, contemporary music…
“It’s an emergency, we no longer have a choice, otherwise we will no longer be able to produce or broadcast anything”, sums up, without ambiguity, a good connoisseur of the file. Too many creations turn out poorly or poorly. This observation has been highlighted at regular intervals for almost twenty years (Latarjet report, in 2004, Entretiens de Valois, in 2009, report from the Court of Auditors in 2022). And this underlying trend has continued to worsen.
Two striking figures – provided by the magistrates of Rue de Cambon and taken up by the Minister of Culture during the presentation, in September, of the ministry’s 2024 budget – summarize the situation: in 2019, the average number of performances of a show in a national drama center was 3.7 performances and 2.3 in a national stage. “There was a time when public theaters offered a minimum of three weeks of programming. Today, it’s four to eight days at most. I find this astonishingdeplores the author and director Joël Pommerat. There are undoubtedly constrained choices, but it is disastrous, because it prevents a show from evolving and growing. »
Financial difficulties
For the labels and networks supported by Rue de Valois, the current context continues to accentuate financial difficulties. The recent decision of Stéphane Braunschweig not to seek a new mandate at the head of the Théâtre national de l’Odéon, in Paris, and the cancellation of performances of Emigrants, the new play by Krystian Lupa, at the Théâtre du Maillon (European stage), in Strasbourg, are there to attest to this. After the long months of venue closures during the Covid-19 crisis, which led to a traffic jam for productions, it is now the inflationary crisis which is weighing down budgets and sharply reducing artistic margins.
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