Independent theatre companies operate on that would close any other business within a season.
A runs for two weeks, and the audience is counted in hundreds rather than thousands.
Ticket income covers a minority of the cost in almost every case.
The gap is filled by , by unpaid labour and by the company's own savings, usually in that order.
Unpaid labour is the item that public discussion avoids.
A period of six weeks paid at a professional rate would change the economics of every independent in the country.
Because it is not paid, the people who can afford to work are selected before any takes place.
The resulting stage is therefore narrower than the city outside it, and the sector describes this as a diversity problem.
It is a wage problem with a diversity consequence, which points to a different remedy.
are the second constraint and have become harder to secure than money.
A room that holds eighty people in a central district competes with every other use of that room.
Companies now programme around availability rather than around a season, which an audience that was already small.
Public buildings with an empty evening are the cheapest possible intervention and require only a decision.
A school hall used four evenings a month costs the city nothing and supports two companies a year.
Arts policy spends most of its attention on grant schemes and most of its potential sits in a caretaker's key cupboard.