Obraz transformácie divadelnej siete v Slovenskej republike
The image of the transformation of the theatre network in Slovakia

Summary/Abstract: The paper addresses a number of topics related to the theatre transformation in Slovakia. The authoress provides a rundown of the events prior to 1989. This was a time when the transfer of the knowledge of theatre funding in the former USSR as part of Gorbachev’s Perestroika was examined. As early as the 1980s, at the time of the command economy, the objective of this theatrical experiment was to enhance the economic prudence of the teams of creative professionals and an efficient and effective management of allocated appropriations and performance-based remuneration. After 1989 and transition to a market economy, multi-source funding was also debated in culture. Up until now, the concept of transformation in theatre has only been interpreted as the saving of money, especially of its administrative and technical elements. When attempts to merge drama ensembles and various cultural institutions into larger institutions were made, there cropped up a problem of the availability of competent managers who would be able to manage institutions of various missions and an issue of scarce funding (fund-raising and remuneration problems). The State made it possible to start private theatres by various founders, however, it failed to stipulate the terms and conditions of multi-source funding in a systemic way (amended income tax and sponsorship laws). It, too, failed to introduce the possibility of multi-year grant projects (for instance, three or five-year grant projects, which are commonly implemented abroad). Indeed, theatre is a privileged type of entertainment of a small part of the population, however, it facilitates personal growth and creativity and it is a component part of dramatherapy. Even though we live in the second decade of the 21st century, Slovak theatre has regreattably remained deeply inveterated in real socialism when it comes to the adoption of the changes of a restructured modern society. It has not abandoned memory effect stereotyes (the allocation of state grants to culture), it has failed to set a rating system to evaluate concrete theatrical productions and their impact upon the audiences, despite the fact that a new paradigm of the theatre function and perception was introduced as an outcome of the development of society and a change in the percipient target group.

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