HUF 50 million from the National Cultural Fund will be available for the grants, which were started by the Playwrights? Roundtable.
Applicants may submit plans for a production to be staged between September 1, 2007 and August 31, 2008. The winners will receive an honorarium and money to cover production costs.
Playwrights of the winning productions will be awarded HUF 500,000 if the play has never been performed before and HUF 250,000 if the play is being performed in a new production.
Productions at full-size theatres are eligible for up to HUF 3 million in grant money and productions at mid-sized theatres are eligible for up to HUF 2 million. Studio theatres may be granted up to HUF 1 million for winning productions. The evaluation committee will determine the proportion of full-sized, mid-sized and studio theatres which will be awarded the support.
The deadline for applying for the grants is March 30, 2007. Results will be announced by May 31.
The evaluation committee will have seven members, to be proposed by the Playwrights? Roundtable to the Hungarian Theatre Society and approved by the Minister of Education and Culture. The members will include an actor, a director, a dramaturge, a playwright, a critic and a theatre manager from Budapest as well as one from outside of the capital.
Hiller stressed that it is not the task of a modern cultural policy to assess works of art, but to create the means necessary for to inspire the birth of new works.
András Forgách, a spokesman for the Playwrights? Roundtable, welcomed the decision to invite joint applications from theatres and playwrights, rather than separate applications.
?Its different when (a theatre) prepares for a production than when a playwright writes a piece, and afterward the theatre happens to decide that it will not perform it,? he said.
Last year, a combined HUF 45 million of Katona József grants were awarded to 18 projections. In 2005, 22 productions and 18 playwrights were awarded the grants, Hiller said. Among last year?s winners were the Bárka Theatre?s production of Géza Bereményi?s The Price of Gold, the Csokonai Theatre of Debrecen?s production of Csaba Kiss?s László Kun, and the Katona József Theatre?s production of János Térey and András Papp?s Bastions.
