Culture Ministry unveils new tools to boost professional theater critics community

First Deputy Minister of Culture and Strategic Communications of Ukraine Halyna Hryhorenko has identified what tools the ministry intends to use to stimulate the creation of a professional community of theater critics.

"This is not a legal entity, but a phenomenon. It is certainly impossible to create it with the help of the state. The idea was to create conditions for criticism to arise," she told Interfax-Ukraine, answering a question about the initiative to create a professional community of theater critics.

In particular, according to her, this requires: a lively theater process; high-quality education, and a media request for relevant content.

"We will try to launch and support these three components. Without this, criticism will not arise by itself, even if we pour millions into it," the deputy minister emphasized.

Hryhorenko noted that today the specialty "theater critic" has been allocated separately and a state order is allocated for it.

"That is, it is not the educational institutions themselves who determine who they recruit: actors, directors, managers, producers or theater critics, but we allocate state places, because we understand that a theater critic is a scientist who researches and writes critical texts," she said.

The Ministry of Culture also intends to advocate, with the help of international partners, for sections on culture in the media.

"We understand that this is not a clickbait story, this is not a self-sustaining story, accordingly, we need to find funds so that these sections, subsections exist in the media, and moreover, so that they are independent," the deputy minister added.

As reported, in early August, Acting Minister of Culture and Strategic Communications Tetyana Berezhna discussed with the staff of the Lesya Ukrainka National Academic Drama Theater the creation of a professional community of theater critics.