Rob Aitken
The Fortune Theatre Trust hopes a Creative New
Zealand-funded review will help the theatre bounce back from a
difficult 2009.
The review, which is scheduled to be completed by early May,
would also assess whether a new management model should be
installed at the theatre, trust chairman Rob Aitken said this
week.
"We are beginning an internal review to give us the basis
upon which the Fortune will meet the challenges of the new
decade and continue to bring the best in live theatre to the
people of Otago and Southland," Dr Aitken said.
"Two open meetings with the community have taken place and
these are being followed by a series of focus groups that
will pool the knowledge, share the aspirations and develop
the relationships that will take the theatre forward."
Professional theatres usually have a general manager in
charge of administration and an artistic director who manages
the product and creative overview of the company.
However, the Fortune has not had an artistic director since
Martin Howells resigned in 2002.
Long-serving theatre manager Janice Marthens resigned in
December and was replaced by interim manager Karen Elliot.
The Fortune would not advertise for a new manager until the
the review was completed, Dr Aitken said.
"We will be exploring all possible combinations and will be
guided heavily by the review.
"The idea is to look at our internal processes and procedures
and to look at the relationship between the staff and the
board and then to look at the theatre and its relationships
to stakeholders."
The premiere of Roger Hall's latest play, Four Flat
Whites in Italy, in November and December had saved the
theatre's financial year.
"While the 2009 season had mixed attendance, two gems stood
out: Emma and Four Flat Whites in Italy.
"Together, they have put the theatre back on the road to
financial and critical success," he said.
"Flat Whites pretty much moved us out of a big hole
into a more manageable one.
"We're certainly starting 2010 better than we started 2008
and 2009.
"While the theatre still has some way to go, this combination
of reworking literary classics and celebrating New Zealand's
vernacular wit and humour will continue this year, with Roger
Hall's Conjugal Rites and Emily Bronte's
Wuthering Heights."
The theatre's collaboration with Interact to develop a
theatre school for children and adults had also strengthened
its foundations, Dr Aitken said.
"We are very pleased with the relationship with Interact and
the drama classes, which are enjoying full rolls to start
term one.
Col-laboration with Interact is an important part of our
community goals and enriches and inspires children through
the magic of theatre."
The Fortune was established in 1973 to bring professional
theatre to Otago and Southland and is the southernmost
professional theatre company in the world.
In 2000, financial difficulties threatened it with closure
and forced the sale of the building - the R.A.
Lawson-designed, former-Trinity Wesleyan Church - to the
Dunedin City Council.
The council now leases the building back to the Fortune
Theatre Trust.
The Roger Hall play Conjugal Rites opened at the
Fortune last night.
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