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Many of us in the theatre community are excited about the new Obama administration and what it could mean for future support and funding of the arts. Playgoer has a really great post on the subject:

I'd rather put my trust in the state rather than The Nation-State. I trust each state (and local/city/municipal governments) to calculate the value of their arts orgs' contributions to their economy, tourism, and public image. Local government arts "czars" can be more responsive to individual arts institutions--and can even attend them!

Yes, there's state programs now. (And in New York NYSCA is already a big deal.) But think how much further that could go. I've personally had it with dreams of some "National Theatre" in the US--but I really like the sound of, say, "The Michigan State Theatre"!

I raise this now knowing full well it is the state funding of the arts that's really going down the toilet in this recession/depression. And that's a big shame. The best thing the NEA could do right now, for my money, is to simply inject its relatively healthy national budget into all these state agencies in a kind of blood transfusion.

I fully agree with his assessment. Arts funding needs to be targeted at the State and local level. Now, correct me if I'm wrong (please, because I very well might be wrong here), but isn't this how it already works? It was my understanding that the NEA, by design, distributes money to artists by filtering it through state and local agencies. Are we just suggesting that we increase the percentage of the total that gets distributed to the states? What would we be doing differently?

Continue reading "Featured Post: Obama's NEA" »

WHAT?!?!

If that's the case, we're all in deep trouble folks. Minnesota Playlist provides this incredible video interview. He discusses ensembles, financial issues, and the ecology of the arts. Please watch.

This one almost didn't happen. I don't know exactly what's going on in Columbus, maybe I'm getting a bad reputation with actors, somehow, but we're having a hell of a time getting a cast together and getting them to stay committed. Casting issues plagued <>Militant Language for the 6 weeks preceding the beginning of rehearsals, and in the end it got so bad we had to cancel the show.

Some of those people drop out of shows for legitimate reasons, but some people just get a little scared and/or a little flaky.

Continue reading "3 Shows, 4 Cities, 4 Weeks: Part the Second" »