The Initiative for Culture

Prague, 19. 5. 2008: over 19 500 residents signed the petition For a Cultural Prague, announced more than a month before. The Capital City representatives changed their position only slightly so initiators decided to strike a balance and refer to situation severity by other public events under the common name of The Days of Unrest for a Cultural Prague. At the same time they are ready to start the personal negotiation on all levels so relevant proposals of solution could be submitted to the City Council at least in June.

Petition for A Cultural Prague
The Initiative for Culture already gained 19 500 signatures for petition For a Cultural Prague, the number is still growing. The City Council during its meeting on April 24 refused their demands. The Petition Committee representatives still stand on proper discussion about all five demands included with the petition pursuant to law § 7 lett.c) of law 131/2000 Sb. on the City of Prague which haven´t been realised yet. The petition wasn´t disccused properly as representatives were apprised of the petition only few minutes before its negotitation (which is in contrary to the City Council standing order) and Councillor Richter almost didn´t attended to single demands of the petition. This attitude was passed to the Mayor of the City of Prague, Pavel Bém, together with demand to including of proper discussion about the petition in the meeting of The City Council on May 29, 2008.

Meeting at Councillor Richter, May 14, 2008
Representatives of all kinds of Prague theatres assembeled on May 14th on call of Councillor Richter (although these repersentatives are requesting his resignation).Councillor notified thetares that if they agree on changes of present grant system, he´ll these accept these changes. The meeting cannot bring any relevant solution since theatre representives weren´t inform about the meeting´s topic and the meeting itself was very short (90 minutes only). Councillor Richter asked concerned parties to submit either corporate proposal of grant system´s change or two different ones. Proposals should be submit at the next meeting in two weeks.

Although Councillor Richter tries to make an impression that dialogue between art community and the City Council is running, at the same time he´s taking steps which has to be understood as counteproductive: the announcement of selection procedures for manager´s posts of four theatres (Divadlo Na zábradlí, Divadlo v Dlouhé, Divadlo na Vinohradech a Divadlo Spejbla a Hurvínka) only six weeks before the end of current season has to be taken only as another nonprofessional decision. Managers of two theatres (Ms Svobodova, Ms Salkova) asked him in March 2007 to announce the selection procedure, but not only he didn´t answer but also informed managers (after the remind in January 2008) that the selection procedures won´t be announced and their posts will be (regarding to forthcoming theatre transformation) automatically prolonged till the end of 2008 .

The second controversial step is appointment of the committee that is supposed to select new managers. This comittee was at first appointed without any experts, finally the selection was extended by two experts from musical theatre range, although the selection procedure is concerning two drama theatres and one puppet theatre. These steps are implying that appointment of the comittee with a majority of politics and clerks has its purpose… Not a single specialized art organization was asked to appoint its members although it´s standard praktice. It means that the committee verdict will be impugnable.

The third controversial step is the plan to carry out material, legal, ecomoical and personal audit in all ten theatres founded by The Capital City of Prague as basis for prepared trnasformation. Many facts – as terms of the audit (summer 2008, i.e. theatre vacation, only possible time for holidays and also the time of first half-year balance and economic analysis), its range, financial load and also the possibility that in four theatres will be the new managers who will be learning to know the theatre run – reflect not only the ignorance of theatres but also uneconomical treatment of public funds. The price of an audit in single theatre is (according to Councillor Richter´s statement in Prazsky denik newspaper on 7. 5. 2008) 2 millions of Czech Crowns.

What are the Days of Unrest?
The Days of Unrest are supposed to call local politics attention to the fact that citizens care about the financial resources dividing and also express a support of the For a Cultural Prague petition. Many events are prepared – happenings, concerts, performances, exhibitions, displaying of the logo on webpages, in coffees, bars and restaurants, but also wearing black and white ribbons. Eveyrone who cares about culture could join us. The events aren´t organised centrally, initiators are collecting informations about the place, form and time of single events. Its list would be displayed on www.za-prahu-kulturni.cz.

Concert For a Cultural Prague
Concert for a Cultural Prague is the biggets event of the Days. It will take a place on Sunday, May 25th, from 13:00 til 20:00 in the piazetta of National Theatre. It´s organized by National Theatre and Initiative for Culture, entrance is free and the stage will be covered. Many artists from all ranges (musicians, artists, dancers and actors) will appear – i.e. musicians Lenka Dusilova, Iva Fruhligova, Karel Plihal, Yellow Sisters, David Kraus, G-point Hunters (Matej Ruppert, Roman Holy and Tereza Cernochova), The Plastic People of the Universe, Nightwork , Natalie Kocabova, Andrea Kalivodova, the FOK orchestra. – as speakers will appear Tomáš Halík, Jan Hančil, Jan Kraus, Miroslav Táborský, Martha Issová and representatives of jeopradized institutions.

The Semafor Theatre
Our hottest premiere title (opening on May 14th) is called The children of captain Grant – it´s our answer to the City Council. This haywire cabaret is a huge success, beyond all expectations So I´m showing off. My other news aren´t such positive ones. Indebtedness of our theatre is growing, the City Council is still delaying the grant payment – it´s an obvious malignity. Last news is, after all, promising – grant is already decided and signed so we might get it and pay our debts. That´s all – there won´t be enough for an existence. I´m thinking about a small cabaret company, which could easily travel out of Prague. Bigger productions, such as The Lysistrate, cannot be possible to perform more than once or twice in a month, because 25 actors on the stage means a financial deficit. So we still have some ideas, but I´m not foreclosing possibility of surprise and (good or evil) luck – so it might all end in a quite different way.
Jiří Suchý, principál

Tanec Praha Festival
Tanec Praha – is the only festival of its kind (contemporary dance a movement theatre) in Czech Republic, this year it´ll celebrate its 20th anniversary and it´s mentioned as a priority of the Capital City of Prague in its valid Conception of City Cultural Policy. This year the Committee for Culture appreciated Tanec Praha project with unbelievably low grant, 300 000 Czech crowns. The City Council carried this motion – 84% less then last year – in May. Reduced festival programme (10 cancelled shows) is already printed and distributed, it´s impossible to cancel more shows because of wide programme in Czech regions. PR campaign was minimalised, ticket prices advanced – but all festival cannot end without deficit – approximately 1, 5 millions Czech crowns.

Archa Theatre
The four year grant for Archa was reduced on 60%. Although grants were agreed by teh City Council on March 27th, till this day theatre dind´t get any money from it. We have a suspicion that the grant contract signature is being delayed purposely in order to block the activities of theatre. Archa is surviving on loans by private persons and associated institutions and thanks to toleration of suppliers, to whom is theatre owing for energies and rent.Most loans were payable in April because even the most pessimistic prognosis hoped that the City pay out the grants. Fortunately, our creditors are still waiting, but no-one will lend us more money. The forthcoming premiere of new vaclav Havel´s play, Leaving, is produced only by support of partners and private persons (i.e. there´re no money from public funds). Although this activity met the hate reaction from the City Council representatives. Theatre is bound to curtail its activities in the range of own projects and guest foreign companies, which used to be a main mission and purpose of Archa. 40 of planned shows were cancelled, mainly in the second half of 2008. Some co-production projects cannot be in spite of desperate economical situation stopped because it might endanger validity of contracts on which the foreign partners depend. Theatre cannot plan any activities for 2009 yera, the year of Czech Republic´s chairmanship of the EU. The grant won´t be able, considering the growing costs of energy and services, to cover not only the artistic activities but also the whole theatre operation. One of the most modern venues in Europe will have to finish its activities.
Ondřej Hrab, manager

Kašpar Company
I have to sad news to tell – the theatre company Kaspar will have to finish ist activities in the summer 2008. We are out at elbows because of unexpected cut of grants on the part of the City Hall, so we aren´t able to make contracts with actors for 2008/2009 season. We are still waiting for a salvation, which are we asking for also in the petition For a Cultural Prague. We are one of many subjects jeopardized by Mr Richter´s steps and we don´t have much time and much hope…

Organizers were addressed by the City representatives only a while before the showcase opening, they were told that in spite of dispproval of partnership was the City still inetersted in support of the showcase. On the next meeting of the Committee on May 14th was subvention indeed proposed, so the City entered the partnership and support of the showcase with two weeks of delay. This showcase is an unique chance to bring to Czech audience European movies, which wouldn´t be able to find a distributor in Czech Republic.
Magdaléna Králová, festival director

Festival 4 days in motion
Almost three months before the festival was to begin, we still had not received news from the City of Prague, who has been a partner of the festival since the very beginning, whether or not they would support the event again. Two months before the festival was to begin, we received word that that was not going to happen. But last week, the situation somewhat changed, and we were told we would receive some “reduced” support – but we still have not received a contract. In such an uncertain situation as this, a festival of such a large scale as ours cannot be realised. In order that we remain a reputable international festival and a serious partner to our surrounding neighbouring partners and colleagues, we were forced to postpone the dates of the festival to October of this year.
Pavel Štorek, artistic director

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Strašnické Theatre
Theatre has on the date of May 16th more then 800 000 of debts, penalties are still growing. It´s a big pressure on the ensemble and other employees, some of them didn´t get salaries for more than 3 monts. We were able to pay actors and discharge few debts only thanks to grants from Prague 10, Ministry of Culture and private persons loans. We are in the middle of rehearsals of productions which is not financialy covered (except promises). Money which we might get from other sources depend on the contract with the City, which we signed a month ago. Only today we get an information that it was signed by the City as well and we get the grant in two or three week, i.e. in June.

ALFREDVEDVOŘE – the stage for new theatre
Fighting tooth and nail, we´ll survive! We have to cancell abroad tours and succesful networking with international venue for perfroming art. For seven years our strategy was the efficiency, modesty and nerves. We get used to the City grant system´s jungle and repeating problems with grant delay in last three years. The theatre lives on debt and thanks to the patience of creditors, artists and all team, which is not paid till the beginning of this year. We have no informations when we get the money. The Alfred ve dvore conception as a small, progressive venue, is based upon a support of young artists and networking with international scene. We are pride on many awards and succesful presentation abroad and in Czech regions. Every year we produce betwen 8 and 12 productions. With a small team we care about almost one hundred artists and theatre groups. The City grant was 5 millions in the last year, which means 62% of our budget. This year we get 53%, other institution – fortunately – still appreciate our work and give us more. Cut of grant is in contradiction with the Grant Committee proposal and it´s against Councillor Richter´s publicity campaign.It´s the demonstration of the incompetency and public lie of the Councillor that „the grant system get a chnce to young artists“. Also the „fair“ flat ticket subsidy discriminates such venues with a small capacity as ours. Financial profit depends of the seats number – and we have only 85 seats. Non-financial profit is not depend on money – and in this way we´re very rich theatre!
Šárka Havlíčková, artistic director