Funding Crisis for Tasmanian Theatre Company

Tasmania's only professional adult theatre company is in jeopardy after losing funding.

The Tasmanian Theatre Company, built from the remains of is theatre by artistic director Charles Parkinson, and created last year by Tasmanian-born stage and screen luminary Essie Davis has lost its Australia Council and Arts Tasmania funding.

The Company has been advised by Arts Tasmania and the Australia Council for the Arts that the company would not receive any funding for next year, raising doubts as to whether the company can continue.

Since a glittering launch at Hobart's Theatre Royal in May last year by Deputy Premier Lara Giddings and actor Davis, shows have included Bombshells, I Am My Own Wife and co-productions Don't Say the Words and Savage River.

The company took a hit last year when cast illness cut short the Hobart season of acclaimed Tasmanian playwright Tom Holloway's Don't Say the Words, which had already enjoyed a successful Sydney run.

Local writer David Lander, who wrote the popular plays It's a Dad Thing and Mate, said he was staggered the company had received no Arts Tasmania funding, stating "it's absolutely vital it continues because it is a flagship theatre company, and not just for theatre workers and goers but because theatre is a flagship for the other arts, design, dance music."

Davis, who appeared in the films Girl with a Pearl Earring, Matrix Reloaded and Australia, urged Tasmanians to embrace the state's flagship company at last year's launch saying "theatre is one of the only forms of political and social expression ... powerful theatre can make shifts in people's thinking. Tasmania is surely crying out for this now."

The Tasmanian Theatre Company recently won an Australian Business Arts Foundation award for its sponsorship partnership with Aurora Energy.