Aspamia Ensemble Faces Closure Amid War and Arts Budget Cuts
The Israeli fringe theater ensemble Aspamia is fighting for survival as the prolonged war, broad cuts to cultural budgets and a steady drop in income push it toward possible shutdown. Artistic director and founder Dalia Shimko has launched a crowdfunding campaign, warning that the company, built over 23 years, could lose its role as a home for original, experimental, multidisciplinary theater.
Aspamia is known for productions that blend theater, music, literature and visual art, including "A Midsummer Night's Dream," "The Revolutionaries," "Weiss Estate," "Reflections," "Married Life" and "Longing Time." Over the years, actors such as Esti Zakheim, Eyal Shachter, Shalom Shmuelov, Oded Menaster and Shimko herself have been part of the ensemble. Shimko said she founded the group 23 years ago to create "a home for independent, brave and uncompromising theater" and stressed that it gave space to women’s voices, unheard stories and the Hebrew language.
The 2025 theater fringe sector was hit by a sweeping cut in Culture Ministry support. About 2 million shekels were cut overall, while additional companies were added to the funding pool without increasing the budget, reducing each group’s share. Shimko said Aspamia’s annual state support fell from 480,000 shekels five years ago to about 350,000 shekels this year, close to the budget she had in 2013. She cited the 2015 production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" on a 350,000-shekel budget and said today that same sum is no longer enough to stage comparable work.
Shimko said the company’s finances were further damaged because 2024 was not counted as an evaluation year due to the war, which closed theaters in the north and south. Under the ministry’s fringe rules, evaluation years determine funding based on factors such as number of productions, performances and production complexity. She said the 2024 show "The Girl," an eight-actor production, effectively vanished from the scoring system, creating a hole in the budget. Shimko said she now carries an 80,000-shekel debt and must still fund new work, current productions, and administrative costs. Tel Aviv municipality support also dropped from 49,000 shekels to 40,000 shekels.
She said the breaking point came with her new play, "Kill Macbeth," written with Ido Seter. The five-actor production would need at least 100,000 shekels to mount properly, but she said she can currently only afford 40,000 to 50,000 shekels. "It is the project of my life," she said, adding that without the money she does not know how the ensemble can continue.
