Says the director of the National Theater | The conservative theater industry will destroy the UK theater industry

Indu Rubassingham, artistic director of the National Theatre, said conservative theater would kill the industry, even if it was helping venues balance the books at the moment.

Addressing the second ever Jenny Lee Lecture to an audience of 200 representatives from the UK arts industry on Thursday, Rubasingham called for a renewed national commitment to supporting creative risks and new writing.

“Investing in the arts when money is tight takes courage,” she said. “And courage in action, because we know what awaits us if we don’t.” “Playing it safe will be the end of us. If we are conservative in style, in content, in process, we may balance the books today but we will be killing the future of theater and betraying Jenny Lee.”

“We are seeing a sharp decline in new writing across the sector. I feel this is the clearest and most worrying sign of what is happening.”

The Jenny Lee Lecture Series is organized by Arts Council England and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Last year, Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy gave the inaugural lecture on the 60th anniversary of Lee’s pioneering white paper on the arts.

On Thursday, Rubasingham highlighted research by the National Theatre’s New Work division, which showed that between 2014 and 2024 there had been a 70% decline in theaters receiving year-round open-air performances.

There were also declines of 76% in new writing festivals and 44% in playwriting courses, as well as a 44% decline in new works on stages outside London and a 30% decline in the capital.

“I fear that the volume and range of sounds on our stages across the country will decrease,” Rubasingham told the audience at the Dorfman Theater in London. “I fear the impact this shrinking and shrinking pipeline will have when it reaches our stages over the next decade.

He added: “Our failure to see this moment as a turning point risks betraying the legacy, pride and heritage of this country – of our pioneering cultural influencer William Shakespeare, our national playwright.”

She said these trends were “canaries in the coal mine, signaling a quiet warning about the impending danger to our democracy, to freedom of expression, toleration, and freedom of imagination.”

Rubasingham pointed to a world divided by misinformation, populist politics, alternative facts, and unity. “If sameness becomes the norm, it only pushes us toward what is expected and profitable. Theater has become one of the few remaining places where we come together and confront complexity together, where we embrace nuance.”

“I worry that we are losing our ability to understand each other, to be present, and to tolerate what makes us uncomfortable.”

Robassingham’s comments come amid warnings of a sharp decline in the production of new work since the pandemic. In November, the British Theater Confederation announced a 30% decline compared to 2019, despite high demand, with new productions accounting for 41.9% of theater attendances in 2023, up from 29.9% in 2019.

In response, playwright James Graham told The Guardian: “We have a storytelling crisis in our nation. We are struggling to imagine the next chapter of our national life.”