Thursday, November 25, 2004

THAT Wenty letter

Gee, Daniel Morrissey from Darling Point is down on the Arts Festival (Wentworth Courier letters, today). He makes a big thing of claiming Louis Nowra's play 'The Woman with Dog's Eyes' was included in the festival 'to pad it out' using 'public money'.

I just had a yak to Louis, who confirmed he had agreed to and was happy about the play's inclusion in the program, as was the Griffin Theatre Company.

The play, by the way, sold out every night -- Louis' most successful yet.

As far as the public money was concerned, five or six square cm of space in a program costs nothing. We could have omitted it and made a picture bigger -- same cost, less info.

Daniel's bitter letter smells of factionalism -- a surefire downfall for local groups. We say again, let's support ALL the KX events and avoid the small-town trap of throwing stones when you live in a glass house.

The Arts Guild at this stage feels those who enjoyed the many successful events know the truth, so they are ignoring the letter.

Not me though. I have sent a reply to the Wenty wearing my hat as one of a host of community members who gave their time gratis to the festival (and last year's BTW). I hope they'll publish it.

Council's decision to split the arts festival funding between two groups showed all the wisdom of Solomon -- only in this case the baby was torn in two! Well, maybe two half-babies are better than one...

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