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City of Oslo, and connected our arguments to the city planning strategies for
the new city area Aker Brygge.
The BBT theatre opened with two beautiful stages – black boxes – the main
stage could host 220 capite per performance, the small one around 80.
As the state financed the production costs for the companies, the City of
Oslo took responsibility of a venue that could present the independent field in
Norway. The City of Oslo also established a grant to support the companies.
The model was truly democratic, and it was a goal to keep the costs of arts
administration down. The model of a presenting rental theatre was established.
You could book you and your company in for three or four days, paying an
expensive rent. You had the minimum of technological equipment, remember
the independent field was a touring field; they used to bring everything with
them, your own technicians, audiovisual equipments, lightning. The companies
themselves were also responsible for the entire PR. They just got the key to
the theatre, and then they were on their own. This way about 80 productions
were presented per year.
It was – as I said – quite democratic. However, a theatre venue without a
professional running platform, regarding the PR, the technological recourses,
both humans and equipment gets no clear and understandable profile and
no credibility, neither by the artists nor by the audience, or by the politicians.
Neither in the city level nor at the Parliament. The model resulted in big gaps
regarding quality and the various professional artistic levels visible in a non-
favourable way. As an audience, you never knew the quality of the work.
It was so expensive to rent the theatre, so you could only perform two or three
times. It was impossible to build up a stabile audience and an interesting
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artistic profile in a city with lots of cultural offers every evening. Therefore, in
this model there was no coherency between the City giving the support and
the theatre philosophy of presentation. The city of Oslo took on to the profile
problems, and started to discuss the model, without providing the resources to
solve the financial trap connected to the rental model. The only thing they did
was to delegate the administration of the grant to the theatre itself, to clarify
the coherency between the grant and the presenting profile. But it did not
solve the deep challenges. We had to build an artistic profile, to develop a
relationship to the audience of Oslo. And in the end – the companies still had
to pay to perform!
In the period of 1990 – 1995, the strategy of developing the theatre from a
“Spillested på dugnad” [venue of voluntary work] to a professional programming
theatre was outlined.
One main goal was to increase the artistic status of the independent field as
such.
We engaged a managing and artistic director of the theatre. We wanted to
be a part of the professional institutions organisation NTO [Norsk Teater- og
Orkesterforening], in order to be accepted as a professional theatre. We had
to develop a high technical service standard.
To the question of artistic profile: How can a theatre based on rent incomes
develop a significant aesthetic profile? With companies who rent the theatre
some few days, performing for the income at the door? Companies representing
a variety of expressions? To rent the theatre, the companies were dependent
on getting financial support from different foundations together with the income