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Friday, April 03, 2026
Sonia Friedman: Ambition and risk-taking suffer when production costs increase
www.thestage.co.uk: Sonia Friedman has warned that rising production costs are denting ambition and resulting in ‘fewer risks’ being taken
3 comments:
Felix Eisenberg
said...
Reading Sonia Friedman’s thoughts regarding this matter is quite shocking and puts everything into perspective. For years now, I have been a huge admirer of everything Sonia does; she is literally the epitome of what a great producer should be and when she says that the current system is under "real strain", then it is serious business! It’s incredible to see how much more expensive it is to revive a show today than what it was only 10 years ago.
As I am someone who values creative and collaborative aspects of theatre. It is troubling to listen as cost increases kill off "ambition." We need "risk-taking" in order for the industry to survive. If we do not take chances on new writing or support regional theatre's, where the development pipeline begins, then we will lose the reason British theatre is considered world-class. Sonia makes such a good point in that theatre does not only provide entertainment, but builds empathy and creates jobs.
I completely agree that people are much less willing to take risks when the production cost is higher. The more expensive things are becoming, the less interested people are in trying something different that could set them back financially. I see this disparity between my high school theatre and community theatre. My community theatre is not well funded, which leads to a lot of non-industry standard measures being put into place. For example, once we did not have enough length in xlr or inputs on the board to run a god mic to the booth for the sm, so we ran an xlr from the talkback and threw it up to the balcony, leaving it suspended in the air. These type of shenanigans would never have occurred at my high school theatre, however, I feel like I learned so much more about troubleshooting from community theatre than high school theatre because there was always something to fix at the former. Seeing as this is a problem, we should look to find ways to cut down on production costs and encourage people to take risks and be creative.
First of all, not a fan of The Stage for titling their paywall with “this is not a paywall,” DONT PMO. Anyways, of course with an increase of cost there’s a decrease in ambition- anything abnormal is expensive. Anything new is expensive. I do appreciate her staging, “protect the development pipeline.” To further dissect this, she is explicitly stating the creative processes that take place to produce new works are under fire and it’s true. As artists, I think it is important that we take this and act on it by supporting new works, new artists, whether or not they are well funded. Truthfully, I have found that most of the work I resonate with strongly is not well funded and does not anticipate a profit- there’s much more authentic creation when money is not a leading factor. When there is no pressure to adhere to what can be capitalized on, artists can run wild and focus more on the emotional conveyance of a story.
3 comments:
Reading Sonia Friedman’s thoughts regarding this matter is quite shocking and puts everything into perspective. For years now, I have been a huge admirer of everything Sonia does; she is literally the epitome of what a great producer should be and when she says that the current system is under "real strain", then it is serious business! It’s incredible to see how much more expensive it is to revive a show today than what it was only 10 years ago.
As I am someone who values creative and collaborative aspects of theatre. It is troubling to listen as cost increases kill off "ambition." We need "risk-taking" in order for the industry to survive. If we do not take chances on new writing or support regional theatre's, where the development pipeline begins, then we will lose the reason British theatre is considered world-class. Sonia makes such a good point in that theatre does not only provide entertainment, but builds empathy and creates jobs.
I completely agree that people are much less willing to take risks when the production cost is higher. The more expensive things are becoming, the less interested people are in trying something different that could set them back financially. I see this disparity between my high school theatre and community theatre. My community theatre is not well funded, which leads to a lot of non-industry standard measures being put into place. For example, once we did not have enough length in xlr or inputs on the board to run a god mic to the booth for the sm, so we ran an xlr from the talkback and threw it up to the balcony, leaving it suspended in the air. These type of shenanigans would never have occurred at my high school theatre, however, I feel like I learned so much more about troubleshooting from community theatre than high school theatre because there was always something to fix at the former. Seeing as this is a problem, we should look to find ways to cut down on production costs and encourage people to take risks and be creative.
First of all, not a fan of The Stage for titling their paywall with “this is not a paywall,” DONT PMO. Anyways, of course with an increase of cost there’s a decrease in ambition- anything abnormal is expensive. Anything new is expensive. I do appreciate her staging, “protect the development pipeline.” To further dissect this, she is explicitly stating the creative processes that take place to produce new works are under fire and it’s true. As artists, I think it is important that we take this and act on it by supporting new works, new artists, whether or not they are well funded. Truthfully, I have found that most of the work I resonate with strongly is not well funded and does not anticipate a profit- there’s much more authentic creation when money is not a leading factor. When there is no pressure to adhere to what can be capitalized on, artists can run wild and focus more on the emotional conveyance of a story.
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