It's Not Just America: UK's Theater System is Also Collapsing

“If America were only like the UK,” an Artistic Director of a prominent regional theater said to me earlier this year. She was referring to something many in the American theater community have thought: it’s easier to do theater overseas. We have long talked about how the UK has more of a theatergoing culture; how government support is greater there. This idea was only further solidified when the West End rebounded quicker than Broadway. But anyone actually looking closely knows UK theater is undergoing its own collapse, it is perhaps simply a step behind us. Public funding is down (with some major theaters losing the entirety of their Arts Council England grants), private giving and corporate sponsorship have declined, artistic leaders are leaving at a high rate, and the number of arts journalists has dwindled.

Earlier this month, Tarek Isklander, Artistic Director & CEO of Battersea Arts Centre in London, wrote a long thread on Twitter (yes, still calling it that) detailing the challenges of presenting theater in the post-pandemic world. Among the things Isklander listed were “a feeling that doing the right thing is ‘unrewarding,’” “lack of state support for artists when out of work,” “chronic poor pay,” “ticket prices that are too high,” “charitable board models that are not fit for purpose,” “sector allergy to IT, AI & anything digital that will improve efficiency,” “lack of collective investment in cultural journalism and reviewers,” a racist/ableist system, lack of support networks, reduced audience numbers, the horrible feeling associated with having to say “no” to more and more projects, and the belief theaters have to fill in cultural gaps in education. Other than mentions of Brexit and an Arts Council England initiative diverting funds away from London, his list reads like something a head of an American regional theater could have written. In fact, it had echoes for me of the essays in Single Carrot Theatre’s Impact Report, published upon Single Carrot’s shuttering.

The challenges are not exactly the same as here. It is still cheaper to mount shows over there, primarily because people generally get paid less—for example, even with a substantial salary minimum bump negotiated earlier this year, West End actors still have a minimum considerably less than the Broadway minimum. (The West End consequently gets riskier fare more often.) But overall the problems they are facing are the ones we are facing, even with a culture typically thought to be more welcoming of the performing arts.

Many here continue to be focused on American cultural failures and theater programming mistakes, but this crisis is about more than that. It's about theater infrastructures generally and the individuals and organizations less likely to support them than they were in years past. 

Industry Trends Weekly is a short column that runs in the weekly Industry Pro Newsletter. You can read past columns and subscribe here. If you have an idea for the column, you can reach the author at cara@broadwayworld.com.

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