The transformation of the theatre system in the Czech Republic
- Summary -
The study of the Theatre Institute (TI) came into being in 2003 within a contribution of the Open Society Fund Praha Foundation
Project Manager: Ondřej Černý, director of TI
Team of Authors: O. Černý, J. Herman, Z. Jindrová, A. Mockovčiaková, D.Nápravníková a B. Nekolný
The contents of the project study:
Chapter I: Fundamental metamorphosis of a professional theatre in statistics
I.1. Theatre network and its structure
I.2. Statistical data
I.3. Transformation steps
I.4. Statistical surveys on professional theatrical production
Chapter II: Legislative conditions for running a theatre
II.1. Positions of territorial authorities and the state
II.2. Legal regulation of the theatrical activity
II.3. General legislation
Chapter III: Financing of theatres
III.1. Transformation of budgets 1990-2003
III.2. Sources of theatre financing
Chapter IV: The cultural policy after 1989
IV.1. Policy statements of the Czech governments
IV.2. The cultural policy of the state in documents of Ministry of Culture of the CR
IV.3. Non-governmental and citizens´ initiatives
IV.4. Transformation activities of municipalities
Chapter V: Project conclusions
V.1. Introduction
V.2. Targets of the theatre system transformation
V.3. Implementation of the study’s conclusions into legislation, financing and cultural policy
V.4. Ideas for innovation of the state’s cultural policy for the area of a theatre
Documentation and bibliography
Appendices
The introductory sub-chapter (I.1) contains basic data and recapitulates the development of a professional theatre on the territory of the Czech Republic after 1948, with description of the theatre network together with basic data on individual seasons 1990 – 2002. After 1989 the theatres were denationalized by conveying most of them from the state to municipalities. Despite initial fears this step meant neither any significant dissolution of theatre ensembles, nor liquidation of theatre auditoriums and premises. And on the contrary, the theatre system was joined by private and non-profit sector after 1990. The number of public permanent theatre ensembles has maintained a stable trend throughout the last decade, stable number of auditors, but the number of performed first-nights is growing. It follows from the statistics that prevailing part of production of private-law entities takes place in Prague. Outside Prague the private and non-profit sectors are engaged especially on places where there is no permanent public-law theatre ensemble. This part is illustrated by following appendices:
- 1. Number of theatres (contributory organisations)
- 2. Summary of theatres (CO) in individual seasons, listed by municipalities
- 3. Summary of theatres (CO) in individual seasons, listed by founders
- 4. Summary of private-law entities
The sub-chapter I.2 is dedicated to statistical data, their collection, treatment and evaluation, including problems arising at collection of relevant data especially from the private sector. The resulting data revealed that only 40 % of theatre entities receives regular subsidies from public sources; the larger part (60 %) obtains funds from private sources, own revenue and partially also from public budgets through grants. The state participates in theatre expenditures by 30 %; the share of municipalities is 70 %. The share of public sources financing activities of theatres – contributory organisations was 67 %, i.e. their self-sufficiency (own income to non-investment cost ratio) being 33 % on average. Since 1990 the self-sufficiency of these theatres has doubled. Own income has risen six times, while cost rising only three times. The number of permanent staff in this section of the cultural sector declined from 8 300 to 7 300. On the other hand with private-law entities the own income amounted to 77 % of total resources. The public-law entities perform around 420 first-nights annually, 14 000 home performances and 500 in abroad, the private-law entities 120 first-nights, 10000 performances at home and 400 in abroad. Every second citizen visits a theatrical performance once a year on average (5 million auditors). With the private-law entities all these data have only an orientation character and have not been monitored until 1995. Precise details on the price of tickets are not available, but it can be said that since 1989 the average price of a ticket has increased approximately eleven times.
The study put as a fact that for excellent theatre personalities it is very difficult and complicated to get to public sources and on the other hand not very identifiable ensembles, mostly acting as contributory organisations of municipalities, have their everyday social certainties resulting from the obligation of mandatory expenditures. The situation when the larger public sources for contributory organisations and limited access to sources (grants) of the private-law sector (especially the non-profit) are separated from each other creates a non-system environment of various approaches to often comparable products of the public cultural service and does not meet the principle of equal opportunities.
Appendix 5: Statistical summaries 1989-2002
The sub-chapter I.3 specifies the individual transformation steps from the viewpoint of the theatre system, as well as courses of actions of individual municipalities, theatres and ensembles. The sub-chapter I.4 describes the issue of statistical surveys, including relevant methods and questionnaires.
The second chapter dedicated to legislative environment starts (II.1) with asurvey and interpretation of relevant acts concerning the position of territorial authorities and the state in relation to theatres (act on municipalities, act on regions, on budgetary rules of territorial budgets, on the state budget and act on the budgetary determination of taxes).
The legal regulation of the theatrical activity (I.2) starts with description of aprocess leading to a complete deletion of the act on theatres in 1995. It illustrates all the history of this issue from the beginning of the 20th century, with a special attention drawn on the fact that the role of a founder of the theatre in the meaning surviving until nowadays was established only by the Theatre Act of 1948, it is conditional on history and even in our country there have already exist also other models of how to run a theatre (e.g. licences).
The last part of legislation (II.3) reminds of general acts relating to the theatre operation, including the copyright act, but also of those acts that allow for different legal personality of various theatre operators (e.g. act on public beneficial companies).
The third chapter is dedicated to financing of theatres and starts (III.1) with adescription of transformation of local budgets in 1990 –2003 as the key instrument of public financing of the theatre system in our country The dissolution of regional national committees in 1990 is reminded, as well as relation between the state budget and budgets of municipalities and methodology of the local budgets. The year 1993 is defined as the starting point of transformation of the Czech economy, including the fiscal reform. That year is marked also with a new definition of the state budget in relation to budgets of municipalities. The whole nineties have been showing a recognisable trend to decentralisation ending within the scope of the public administration reform with establishment of self-governing regions and new determination of taxes.
Sources of the theatre financing (III.2) are described as a) private resources (expenditures of households, expenditures of legal entities, expenditures of physical persons, self-employed persons in particular) and b) public budgets (the state budget – Chapter 334 and budgets of territorial authorities – municipalities and regions). The chapter describes the mechanism of public budgets expenditures to theatres in the form of assistance towards the cost of a contributory organisation, subsidy on the basis of a programme (grant) or public procurement contract.
Appendix 6 contains the summary of public budgets expenditures for theatrical activity and support given to theatres in 1997 – 2002.
The last chapter relates to certain aspects of the cultural policy in our country after 1989. The first sub-chapter (IV.1.) analyses the policy statements of Czech governments from the viewpoint of their relation to culture, and only exceptionally also from the viewpoint of theatres. The essential problem consists in the fact that for no Czech post-November government the culture has become a factual (and not only declared) priority. The study suggests that even at present, and despite many statements, the government is not successful in releasing funds for culture in such amount that is usual in the EU countries. Basic problem of the theatre policy remains the provision of a multi-source, co-operative and long-term financing.
The next part (IV.2) monitors the cultural policy of the state as it appears in the documents of the Ministry of Culture, from total absence of this definition in the first half of the nineties to the impulse of the White Book (1996) consisting in rehabilitation of its meaning and the term itself, including comparison of relation of the state and culture in different European countries. This summary ends with an analysis of the present document The Cultural Policy of the CR adopted by the Government in 2001, again with a reference to predominantly declaratory character of these principles being a larger barrier to the necessary concrete effectiveness of this policy as a true instrument of the active cultural strategy.
The sub-chapter IV.3 mentions the non-governmental citizens´ activities in relation to the cultural and theatre policy after 1989, including structuring of the theatre system and non-profit sector, for example the establishment of the Theatre Community, Actors´ Association, theatre trade unions, etc. It summarises those many conferences, initiatives and documents having their origins in this part of the citizens´ society and mainly concerning relation of the state and culture, as well as position and importance of theatres in the society. It is obvious that some problems as for example the allocation of public sources (ways, methods and amounts) were articulated in the theatre community for the first time immediately in 1990 and basically they survive till nowadays. At the end of this part Milan Lukeš is cited: Theatre is the last stand of etatism. This is undignified, anti-liberal and bad as far as the system is concerned.
The study is closed (IV.4) by description of transformation activities and steps of individual municipalities. A larger space in relation to the theatre is given to cultural concepts of Prague and Pilsen. This part contains also serious warning about the so far not evaluated and underestimated addressing of the multiplication effects when the theatre subsidy becomes an investment bringing not only social benefit. At the end the study clearly supports the understanding of the dramatic art as a public cultural service with a reference to possible practical solutions of transformation of the theatre system, including its targets, principles and criteria.
The project output is given in Conclusions (V.) defining objectives of the transformation process of the theatre system in the Czech Republic (V.2) as far as the ways of financing and legislative environment are concerned. Then suggested actions follow that would make possible the implementation (V.3) of the analysis results, including specific ideas for innovation of the state cultural policy after 2005 (V.4) from the viewpoint of theatre needs and interests.
The part Documents and bibliography contains:
Policy statements of governments of the CR, documents of the Ministry of Culture of the CR, acts of the CR including special fiscal regulations, sources, literature and excerpts from magazines Svět a Divadlo (World and Theatre) and Divadelní noviny (Theatre News).
The summary was made by Bohumil Nekolný, the Project Co-ordinator – March 2004
1