Parramatta. Support for the arts

Parramatta Lord Mayor, Lorraine Wearne, has welcomed the state government’s support of local arts and cultural projects, through its 2012 Arts Funding Program. The Riverside Theatres will receive $60,000, which will go towards True West Theatre productions, to help enhance creativity, deliver high-quality shows and reach new audiences. Riverside Theatres will also receive $5,000 towards its education program that encourages a life-long appreciation of theatre through travel and ticket subsidies for school excursions and a range of workshops and productions The Parramatta Artists' Studios has been granted $80,000 to provide non-residential and residential studio, and exhibition space, to emerging and established artists, craft practitioners and creative industry professionals.

Parramatta. 'Obvious location is Parramatta'

Below is a letter, by Bruce Hyland, Daleys Point, in the Weekend Edition, of The Sydney Morning Herald, Dec 17-18.

Michael Fox’s suggestion that the main auditorium at the Opera House should be upgraded “to a state-of-the-art” multi-purpose space as originally envisaged by Joern Utzon Letters, Dec 16) fails to grasp that such a concept was and always will be fundamentally inappropriate.

If we are to have a proper theatre that can accommodate opera and lrge-scale popular music productions, it will have to be built from scratch, and the obvious location is Parramatta.
Here is an opportunity for the state government to take a bold decision to establish the nucleus of a new arts complex at the geographical centre of Sydney.

It will mean a long overdue upheaval in the attitude of eastern suburbs patrons of the arts and possibly, some rethinking of public transportation links to the north shore, but the long-range benefits are potentially immense.