Open Letter
The Importance of Being Ernestly Professional
TOMEK BORKOWY calls for the Arts to get more professional and for joined-up thinking to safeguard creativity in Scotland. The Fringe is the biggest Performing Arts festival in the world but are we making the most of its potential to support Scottish Arts Industry?
Few people automatically think of the Performing Arts as an industry that generates substantial amounts towards the country’s GDP. Although Scotland has many talented and highly trained practitioners, generally they are not regarded as educated professionals. Why does this perception prevail? And why is it important to change it?
Accordingtovariousdefinitions,a PROFESSIONAL is a qualified, skilled expert, practising learned abilities in order to make a living. The remuneration, practice, methods and continuous self-improvement, differentiates a professional from an amateur.
In most European countries, professional arts form a significant part of education and the intellectual development of society. It is seen as an occupation with the same status as other professions. In the UK for many years however, the boundary between professional and amateur arts, and especially in the Performing Arts, has been obliterated to the point that the value of the craft of professional artists has been undermined.
In theatre blame lies on both sides of the proscenium arch. On one hand, professional Performing Arts practitioners stopped fighting for their status and the importance of professionalism, frequently tolerating mediocre work. Often a ‘that will do’ complacency prevails, ‘justified’ by a lack of funds. But equally alarmingly, an ‘Oh, it’s OK’ notion predominates with audiences and typically people tend to accept sloppy, or cheap and cheerful amateur work as ‘good enough’ for them. This attitude from both, producers and consumers, rewards mediocrity and gives amateurism a quasi-professional status.
How has this happened? And why is it dangerous for the future of the Performing Arts in Scotland?
Margaret Thatcher was deeply suspicious of professionalism and convinced that only direct control by government, cutting subsidies and market competition would solve the social and economic problems of the country. As a result, professional unions were disempowered, financial investment in the arts shrank and free market forces were imposed on the entire PerformingArts. Allthiswasconceivedand implemented by a government that didn’t understand the significance of the arts.
It was hoped that Labour would reverse Thatcher’s attacks on UK culture. Instead professionalism came under attack from a different angle. The arts were forced to take responsibility for ‘Social Inclusion’. Public financing was skewed towards arts projects that directly connected with social programmes, which in turn further reduced the status and strength of professional arts bodies. Furthermore, the state took away responsibility from the unions for determining standards and conduct that regulated entry to their profession.
In time, these policies led to uncontrolled access to the arts industry and completely destroyed boundaries between amateur and professional arts. Heavily subsidised Social Inclusion projects, enhanced by university drama departments admitting more and more students in order to maintain their public subventions without improving training facilities, has resulted in massive overcrowding and lowering standards within the Performing Arts sector.
Another problem, which emerged from ‘Inclusion’, is the notion that mixing talk of money with talk of arts somehow corrupts the art and that artists can and should work for free. A lot of amateurs and non-professionally-minded artists have endorsed this idea, categorising performing arts practitioners, and specifically actors, as second-rate, low-skilled, incidental workers.
Although artists have a professional responsibility to their communities, they need to maintain a distinction between amateur and professional work. Saying this, I strongly believe that the amateur sector should be helped to develop and be cherished as a breeding ground for future professional practitioners.
To be credible in the eyes of the general public and among other occupations, the Performing Arts sector needs to return to a point where it is regulated by its own professional bodies, actively encouraging high standards and the on-going education of its membership. Working in the Performing Arts is a vocation. It is a dedication to educate through creation and an obligation to self-development. The devotion of so many practitioners in Scotland is perhaps the strongest argument for the preservation and development of professionalism in this industry.
But how important is it for all of us to understand the distinction between professional and amateur Performing Arts? How significant is it to maintain quality professional theatre in Scotland? In the current economic environment, we all need to be able to answer those questions.
A lack of clear distinction lowers standards and quality but even more damagingly, drives the best talent away from Scotland. Regrettably, there is a view that an actor, and many other creative practitioners of any calibre must go to Londontosucceed. InordertokeepScottishtalent at home, we have to be more astutely critical about what has been presented to us. But at the same time we all, artists, policymakers and audience, have to help our professional creative industries to develop. We have to realise and accept that the Performing Arts is of benefit not only in educational and intellectual terms but also as an industry that can bring substantial employment and income to Scotland. It should be a crucial part of Scotland’s identity on the world stage.
As audience members we should appreciate and encourage the efforts of amateurs and demand quality from professionals. Of course there is no absolute rule that all professional shows in the Fringe will be good and all amateur shows inferior but, regardless, we should be much more particular and demand a clear advertised distinction between professional and amateur productions. When I am choosing a show, I want to know if I am paying to see a professional production with a professional cast or I am choosing a ‘cheap and cheerful’ amateur show. I would therefore judge it with different measures and I don’t want to pay the same amount for both; professionals are doing it for a living and amateurs for their pleasure.
I believe that our SNP government understands the importance of investing in Professional Arts. However, Scottish artists have to be more enterprising too. An economic impact study shows nearly £135 million is spent in Edinburgh as a result of the Fringe. But how much of it benefits Scottish Performing Arts? I believe, very little.
A great number of festival venues are run on a commercial basis, but Scottish-based companies run only a small percentage of these. All venue producers are my colleagues whom I respect, but I estimate that last year 85% or nearly £3m of venues’ gross profit left Scotland to support the Performing Arts industry elsewhere. There are five big commercial venues in the Fringe and only one, the smallest, is based in Scotland.
To keep our industry vibrant, Scottish promoters, artists, unions and Creative Scotland together with the Scottish Government and Scottish sponsors have to take advantage of the biggest performing arts festival on earth here in our capital. There are commercial opportunities here, which can support Scottish Performing Arts and other creative industries.
Difficult times lie ahead for the arts and we all have to think how to avert the destruction of the creative and intellectual lifeline of the nation.
Being earnestly professional is the first essential step.
Tomek, your statement holds true far beyond the Arts in Scotland, it's pertinent for the Arts in general. The Arts have always had a struggle to claim their significance and validity, but with too many options and most of them low-quality, the appreciation of the arts, as well as what to expect has dropped significantly. The easy way out would be to not be involved in the arts at all or simply accept the low standard as "what it is" and conform to that. But then (to quote Kerouac) there are "the mad ones," who relentlessly believe in the crucial need and total significance of the Arts and fight for that cause, knowing what they are up against. You are an inspiration as a "professional" and and "artist", and by being so, are setting a higher standard and tipping the scale. As a young producer, without 35+ years of this beloved business we call "show" yet under my belt, I feel utterly inspired for the future, that is, if there are people like you and Universal Arts around to set the standards, or at least shake them up.
Cindy Sibilsky
International Representative/Tour Producer for Company XIV
and Producer/President of InJoy Entertainment LLC