Monday, February 14, 2011
This Is Not A Political Blog
American Theatre Wing: "While a significant portion of the theatre community was distracted over the past several weeks by the fallout from Rocco Landesman’s statements about there perhaps being too many theatres, a more imminent problem began a journey through the halls of government. I’m speaking of proposed cuts to the National Endowment for the Arts, which overnight between Thursday and Friday nearly doubled, even before most people were aware that any cuts were on the table.
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3 comments:
I'm rather surprised this article hasn't received any comments, because it brings up a really intriguing perspective on the Landesman/NEA stories this month. The public perception of the arts seems somewhere split between the starving bohemian performance artist and the corporate Broadway movie-to-musical crowd, and neither of these have an obvious benefit to society (besides that shaky notion of "bringing money into the city"). I keep thinking back to the mission statements for not-for-profit groups: presumably these organizations are set up to provide something to the community (education, culture, etc) and I, like this author, believe that message needs to be publicized and pressed on people if we ever want governmental funding to be a constant, rather than an annual coin flip.
"So let’s gather our painters, our sculptors, our actors, our dancers, our singers, our filmmakers and get behind a singular, cohesive message ..."
The author states this is not a political blog but these same words were said once by . . . wait for it . . . THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT. From the mid 30s to early 40s the US Government employed millions of artists and tradesmen to promote and create public works. One of these public works: the arts. From this era we have gotten many of the great American gems of theater, including playwrights like Eugene O'Neil.
By stating the post is not political I can't help but think of the WPA and a time when government funding for the arts was AMAZING. Now IT SUCKS. While I agree with the point that as artists we don't often make a case for the arts, we just assume it to be so because they are so important to us; I think we need to look beyond that. If we are asking Big Brother for more money we need to not just view ourselves as artists, but as citizens in this country. We forget that. Lack of funding for the arts signifies something greater, something we might not be seeing: the absolute train wreck that the American economy is. The discussion on how to fix this doesn't belong on this blog, I'll leave that up to you. But I don't think you can say lack of arts funding is not a political issue; it is.
This article is a sad look into the unfortunate commercial necessities which surround the arts. The National Endowment for the Arts budget cuts were refereed to as almost annual events. this is not good, but it draws attention to the need for funding for noncommercial theater in a very real way. it seems that part of the issue, as it often is, is one of education. If people can be educated about the need for greater support for the arts then perhaps the appreciation will increase.
Another good point raised is the difficulty of justifying the need for art in practical, binary terms. this will need to be over come in order to resolve the issue.
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