Maori Trust Fails To Get Play Grant

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31223, 22 November 1966, Page 11

Maori Trust Fails To Get Play Grant

(From Our Own Reporter)

WELLINGTON, November 21.

The Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council has rejected an application from the Maori Theatre Trust for a £9200 grant to help finance its forthcoming production of the play “Awatea.”

The trust, which hopes to start rehearsals on February 0 and to open a New Zealand tour in Gisborne in March, will now seek private sponsorship.

In a letter to the trust, the council director (Mr D. Pet-

ers) also says that because of substantial commitments made by his body earlier this year, —it is unable to give the trust a £9200 guarantee against losses. Mr Peters says he has been asked to discuss the trust application with the Maori Purposes Fund Board and to advise the trust that it should mount a small workshop production of the play so that a critical evaluation could be made by the author, designer, producer and promoters. If that production succeeded, the trust should arrange a small-scale professional or amateur production in a particular locality for a limited season.

“With this experience behind it." says Mr Peters, “the trust could then assess what economic touring of the play would be possible within the resources of the trust.” Mr P. Keiha, chairman of the trust, said last night the

council advice was neither economical nor profitable. “A workshop and a smallscale professional production would cost us as much to mount as the proposals already submitted to the trust. “The return from such experiments would never recover the cost of the ventures. After a careful appraisal, with expert advice, the board of trustees finds the advice unacceptable.”