The Ministry of Culture and Liepāja Municipality assure the correspondents of TV Kurzeme that additional funding is being negotiated almost every week to solve the crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic in Liepāja Theater.
The state theater cannot be helped directly, but the local government could obtain funding by participating in the State Cultural Capital Fund project “Creating the future cultural offer in all cultural sectors.”
“Projects must be submitted on August 28 this year. The theater has prepared the projects as much as possible, and accordingly we are convinced that the theater will start with these projects, and we hope for a successful result, ”explains Atis Deksnis, Deputy Chairman of the Liepāja City Council for Culture and Sports.
Dace Vilsone, State Secretary of the Ministry of Culture, points out that the Liepāja City Council as a shareholder has not yet approved the financial information submitted by the Liepāja Theater.
“We regularly call and exchange views with Liepāja City Council, so we will continue to do so until the situation is resolved,” emphasizes Vilsone.
Eva Ciekurze, a member of the board of Liepāja Theater, says that at a time when the financial situation in the capital company is not clear, the entire theater team is fully focused on their work. Artistic performance in the form of various performances would also mean additional income from tickets.
The municipality has already provided annual funding for the maintenance of the theatre’s core business, but this will not be enough to overcome the crisis.
“For so long, it has not been possible to earn any revenue, and in the future, showing performances with a significantly smaller number of spectators is a completely different financial result. We have reorganized in such a way that today, tomorrow, we can survive, we can start the season. How this cash flow will develop, we can follow it every day, ”points out Ciekurze.
Liepāja City Council is waiting for an agreement on the support mechanisms of the Ministry of Culture.
Only then, when deciding on the amount of support from the City Council, emphasizes Atis Deksnis.
The idea of dividing the theater’s management functions in half with the state and local government in order to alleviate the local financial burden has been discussed before, but as the Ministry of Culture confirms, this issue will be decided only when the primary problem is overcoming the Liepaja theater financial crisis.
CONTEXT:
In July, the director of Liepaja Theater announced – if the state does not financially support the theater, which is legally considered to be a municipal capital company, as well as all other large state theaters, the Liepāja theater may have to close down in October.
In early August a compromise has been reached, Liepāja Theater, which was in crisis due to the Covid-19 pandemic, could be supported both by the State Cultural Capital Fund and the municipality.
To overcome the crisis caused by Covid-19 and economic recovery, investment in culture was decided to allocate 32 million euros: € 10.6 million to mitigate the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic public cultural institutions and support for creative people; EUR 10.4 million for modernization measures in the cultural sector – public procurement of new cultural assets, as well as EUR 11 million for cultural infrastructure.
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