Actors and arts union Equity hold talks about the industry and their cuts to the arts.
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00:00 Sure, so my name is Alice Adams-Lemon. I'm the National Official for Equity in Northern Ireland.
00:05 That means I'm a paid representative to ensure, protect and support members living and working
00:10 in the north of Ireland and also across Ireland as a whole. Today we are at Equity Fest and Equity
00:18 Fest is effectively kind of a trade show for artists and that means that we're open to having
00:23 performers who are either members of Equity or not members of Equity, we don't mind, and those
00:28 who are representing and supporting the arts as well. We're holding it in Derry today, it's our
00:33 second ever Equity Fest. We held our last one in Portrush last year and from the turn of today I
00:39 think it's safe to say we'll be doing it again next year. Can you talk about your campaign to
00:45 stop the cuts in arts here in the north, especially with the Warsaw Theatre just closing there
00:52 yesterday? Yeah, I mean the Resist the Cuts campaign has been going on since this time last
00:59 year actually, by April last year. We found out that in March in fact, 2023, we found out that
01:05 the Arts Council was going to likely have to cut its funding to its annually funded organisations
01:12 in the north of Ireland and Northern Ireland up to about 10 percent. We just knew that was going
01:17 to be devastating for our sector. By '80, around that, production companies and organisations
01:23 were going to look at cuts that were going to be even more of a cut to them during the cost
01:27 of living crisis when energy bills were going up, rent was going up and everything else,
01:31 so it was going to be really, really critical. Now Arts in Northern Ireland, the funding from
01:37 central government or from Stormont has cut 40 percent over the last 10 years and up to now it's
01:44 been 40 percent, so that was just going to be an absolutely devastating blow. So we started the
01:49 campaign then. Now the news was that a five percent cut would come down the line and that did happen
01:55 and then we were told by the Permanent Secretary, because there was no Minister in place at the time,
02:00 that we should expect more cuts this year as well. So now we've got a Minister in place,
02:04 we are really, really trying to make sure that Gordon Lyons hears us loud and clear,
02:08 that we would like to make sure that the arts is properly funded here. It has the less money
02:12 per capita than anywhere in England, Wales, Scotland and the Republic as well, which is
02:17 serviced fairly well by Irish equity I should say. So we want him to hear us loud and clear.
02:23 Twelve and a half thousand people signed our petition last year against the cuts for Arts
02:28 in Northern Ireland, which was an enormous figure and from then on our campaigning has gone from
02:34 strength to strength, including with local councils as well and we'd love the local councils to all
02:40 get behind supporting funding for Arts. The best place that we can think of to start is to get
02:47 Gordon Lyons to hear us loud and clear. Put more money in from your budget, you can afford it,
02:52 it's a drop in the ocean compared to all the other funding requirements that are needed from that
02:57 department and it will sustain our artists and our art and our communities as well.
03:01 But the exciting news is we're about to add to our fold today. I'm going to ask Lara from
03:08 Music Theatre to come and join us and sign our first equity agreement with Music Theatre.
03:13 Thank you everyone. I just wanted to say that yes, this is exactly what motivated us to sign
03:31 this agreement. We deeply value the work of all the actors and stage managers and all the other
03:38 creatives we work with and nevertheless we were already using the equity agreement from us. We
03:45 have just decided that we had to do it and I am so excited I have to say, to make our commitment
03:52 even more official for everyone that will work with us and has been working with us.
03:57 I'm just going to sign this right now and of course you can see Lara, she's the producer,
04:12 stands up. You'll remember this.
04:24 My name is Grace Doherty, I am 21 and I am based in Derry. In terms of equity,
04:35 I am our student deputy. Can you talk about what it's like being a working actor, especially if
04:40 this is like the Waterside Theatre shutting down? I think when it comes to closures of theatres,
04:46 particularly on somewhere like Derry where we have limited spaces for performance anyway,
04:51 when somewhere like the Waterside Theatre closes down, it's somewhere that it's a community hub
04:55 as well as a performance space and so many of us have performed on that stage, whether it's
05:02 in pantomimes or whether it's in turn productions or in-house productions. It provided a lot of
05:08 opportunity, not just for people who are established within the industry but for young
05:12 people like myself. The Waterside Theatre for me was my starting point and when places like that
05:17 close down, you're taking away a lot of people's first step into entering the industry and that's
05:24 detrimental and it puts people off wanting to come into the arts and that I think can be a
05:29 justification sometimes for the funding being cut, which is a big issue for us at the minute.
05:35 Things to remember, consent must be discussed every single time you do a scene. It's not linear,
05:43 that blew my mind when I heard that. So if you agree to something now and go, great, sound to
05:49 that, sign your re-agreement, the whole lot and then you go, do you know what, that's not for me,
05:56 I'm removing my consent. That's alright, that's it. That is completely fine and completely
06:04 encouraged. The show doesn't have to go on. Do you know what, when you sign a contract,
06:10 that is fine, you're well in your rights to remove that consent. It is a journey, it's not a moment.
06:17 Lovely, and it's something we're doing, we're starting to integrate through schools
06:22 and you know, to get, imagine getting consent in at an early age, imagine the atmosphere then,
06:27 we wouldn't know ourselves. But anyway, that's what we needed. Look at those statistics.
06:34 That's real, that's real. I'd like you to read it, I've read this out so many times,
06:41 but while you start reading that, after Awakening the Feminist, it was myself
06:46 and the beautiful Jo Egan, who were on there with us, and another actor who started a safe space in
06:51 Northern Ireland, for those that have been affected for things like this. And when I say
07:00 hundreds upon hundreds of stories that still come to me,
07:07 they're only those that have been reported. This happens, and again, as members of your
07:14 uni, your tribe, you don't vouch for that, you stand up for those around you. It's not okay,
07:20 none of that's alright. Yeah? Yeah?
07:24 [Applause]
07:30 My name is Muriel Nohara, I am here with Coaching, Casting and Intimacy, a company that myself and
07:38 Natalie Murphy run. We are a cast and director team, we deal with our coaching, in our TV,
07:45 film and theatre, and I'm a trained intimacy coordinator as well. So we work under best
07:52 practice. At the minute, and that's really interesting, because budgets have been cut
07:57 left, right and centre, no matter where you are, but the process is still important. So
08:01 no matter what form of intimacy that you have in the scene, there must be an intimacy. A third party
08:08 resident when that happens. But again, what we do here is we believe that intimacy should be
08:14 addressed and prepped as early as possible in the process. So when it comes to the writing of,
08:20 or the pre-production, so we can consult from that end. And once it's in there,
08:25 we start thinking like that, and arming our actors of what they need, what they want to offer.