MEAA's letter to Minister Foss

Auinment and Arts Alliance, the organisation representing the interests of Western Australias professional performing artists, I write to express deeply held concerns at your refusal to assist the Effie Crump Theatre Company in its quest for survival. The amount requested by the company was as modest as your decision is pretentious.Effie Crump offered real opportunities for professional Western Australian performers to apply their skill and craft in an alternative environment to WAs subsidised Theatre companies.One assumes you have been made well aware of the following facts. However, I offer them here to reinforce the illiberality of your decision. Since 1996 Effie Crump has produced 26 professional productions. This is equivalent to 59% of total production output of all three "adult" subsidised Theatre companies over the same period. It has employed 82 professional Western Australian performers and 4 interstate performers. This amounts to 223 Actor working weeks made up of 71 weeks rehearsal and 152 weeks in production. It has employed 12 professional directors for 71 director working weeks. It has employed 6 stage managers for 223 working weeks. It has achi could enlighten me, but I see daily the generation of dismay and despair, a disillusioned profession compromised into obscurity, and the fragmentation of a once healthy community with an audience lost that remains an audience lost. Not an honourable performance, Mr Foss.The position of Minister for the Arts requires an understanding and appreciation of all the art forms. You have been widely ( and laughingly) quoted in Theatre circles as "being unwilling to fund lifestyles." Do you have any idea of the commitment, skill, training, dedication and expertise required for a professional career in the Theatre? If so, you show no signs of it. Further, perhaps you should consider who it is that funds your lifestyle.Crude statements attributed to you in the press that "less funding means less of a loss" offer a clear indication of your level of ignorance of the performing arts industry. Your position requires an understanding that professional performing arts is labour intensive. The industry by its very nature must employ highly skilled professionals who have the right to be recognised for those skills in terms of wages. They cannot be replaced by machines. Your position requires a recognition that the performing arts provides a powerful tool for humanising the electorate , and as such cannot be compared to private enterprise. You cannot treat this industry like any other business Mr Foss. It is unique. It is Art.Your recent statement that:"The Arts are a dynamic force in shaping community identity and continually contribute to the well being and quality of life of all Western Australians"can only be seen for what it is, the hollow rhetoric of a Minister and Government who has chosen to ignore the genuine contribution the performing arts makes to this States community.Western Australians are becoming increasingly jaded with Governments wishing to leave behind monuments to their existence. Your legacy will be seen as unique when the next generation examines its near past. Your mark will be indelibly inscribed as the Minister who presided over the slow bleeding death of Western Australias professional Theatre industry.As State Secretary of the Alliance I will be calling on all of our members to demand that you step aside as Minister for the Arts and make room for someone who may have a genuine interest in the performing arts with a wish to see them prosper and flourish.Yours sincerely,      STEVEN J. SHAWBranch/State SecretaryMEAA PERTH. cc	The Premier	members WA State Cabinet.	Dr Geoff Gallop MLA	Hon Tom Stephens MLC	Sheila McHale MLA