Mike Pearson - Theatre Maker, Wales

Dear Richard and Judie

I write in support of the appeal by the Centre of Performance Research to the Arts Council of Wales against the cut in its annual grant. I do this as a theatre maker in Wales for the past thirty-five years: as co-director of Cardiff Laboratory Theatre (1973-80), Brith Gof (1981-97) and Pearson/Brookes (1997-present).

Once again, there is that failure of will and imagination to acknowledge the on-going significance of practices organically grown rather than the bureaucratically made.

Again, that systemic lack of appreciation of independent vision and application sustained as life-long commitment rather than as response to short-term incentive…

Again, that propensity to render ‘surplus to requirements’ those regionally developed, mature, reflective and self-critical approaches that are the repositories of hard-won and deeply wrought theatrical knowledge and expertise…

Again, that inability to value achievements internationally recognised that ostensibly fail to fulfil the latest imperatives in funding policy and provision…

The Centre for Performance Research is an essential part of a distinctive and particular ecology of theatre in Wales. The imminent danger is the appearance of a single economy of cultural representation and attendant stylistic orthodoxy. With so much talk recently of the desirability of an international profile for Welsh theatre, how ironic it is that CPR is already known worldwide for the range and quality of its multifarious activities, and as the main conduit for in-coming work that has had such a profound effect in inspiring and informing indigenous theatre.

Your survival is of the utmost importance. I support your appeal wholeheartedly.
Yours most sincerely



Mike Pearson