Celle Council sounds the alarm: Theater funding is urgently required!

Celle Council sounds the alarm: Theater funding is urgently required!

In Celle, a unanimously passed motion by the city council is causing a stir: a “resolution on theater financing” is intended to persuade the state government in Hanover to fulfill its responsibility for municipal theaters. The focus here is particularly on the Palace Theater, which is considered an important cultural center of the city. Director Andreas Döring expressed his gratitude for the city council's initiative and the support that the theater needs in order to continue to exist and continue its programs. The Celle Zeitung reports that Mayor Jörg Nigge (CDU) has been in discussions with various ministers since 2020 to provide more financial support for the theater achieve.

The Celle Castle Theater is currently receiving funding of 2.07 million euros from the state of Lower Saxony and 1.87 million euros each from the city and district. But this sum is not enough: the municipal theaters in the state are demanding a total of six million euros to cover their urgent financial needs.

The ongoing difficulties

The situation is further exacerbated by tariff increases that are not compensated for by the state. District Administrator Axel Flader reported at the most recent city council meeting that municipal theaters such as the Schlosstheater in Celle, but also the theaters in Hildesheim, Osnabrück, Wilhelmshaven, Lüneburg and Göttingen, are suffering from this financial burden. Göttingen has even submitted an application for equalization of the financing, which Celle has agreed to. The Celler Presse highlights that the Celle City Council is exerting cross-party pressure on the state government and criticizing the state for shirking its responsibility.

A look at the current allocation of state funding shows that Lower Saxony provides almost 29 million euros annually for the entire municipal theater landscape. However, this sum is considered insufficient because tariff increases and constantly growing costs are not covered. In the past, talks with the state have remained fruitless, while co-financing of tariff increases has also been suspended since 2020.

The way into the future

The Celle Castle Theater, which currently has almost 130 employees, including around 100 permanent employees, is an essential part of the cultural landscape in Lower Saxony. Intendant Döring reported on special funding of 250,000 euros for the children's and youth theater, which will continue to help ensure work in the area of ​​theater education. But the theater's structural deficit currently amounts to around 100,000 euros and could even rise to 500,000 euros after the next tariff increase. This situation hits the theater, which plays an important role in the community, to the core.

Although the Ministry of Science and Culture (MWK) has provided increased funding in the past, the long-term preservation of community theaters must be guaranteed. As part of a target agreement, ambitious cultural policy goals were set in order to expand the audience and address new target groups. But it is more than questionable whether all of this can be achieved without adequate financial support from the state. The MWK Lower Saxony website shows that the theaters in Lower Saxony must be understood not only as places of art, but also as important educational institutions. The Celle City Council clearly points to this aspect.

The pressure on the state government is growing - one can only hope that it will listen to the calls for fair and equitable theater funding. Because without a sustainable solution, the future of the Celle theater landscape remains more than uncertain.