AMERICAN THEATRE: Corporate giving to theatres, long in decline due to shifts in attention toward social and political causes, has plummeted in recent years. Meanwhile the Trump administration and its enablers in Congress seem intent on decimating federal funding of the arts. For many theatres, then, the last best hope remains support from private foundations. Any cuts there feel like stab wounds, deadly enough to prompt a Shakespearean “Et tu?”
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I think that the funding issues that we feel we are constantly fighting in theatre are a valid concern, however I wonder how many of these fears could be lessened if companies figured out how to be more “green” in their processes. If there was more reuse, repurpose, and upcycling for pieces and sharing of resources would the concern of funding feel as big as it does. This article even mentions at the end that their data only came from 745 theatres. How many of those were larger companies, how many of them were founded in the last 4 years? How many companies closed within the last 4 years due to reasons only pertaining to funding? This data feels like there is a lot of nuance and missing information that would round out the information being offered. They even mention that it doesn’t look dramatic when compared to 2019. I think this only shows the volatility of the markets and something that I’ve heard for years is “if you want to know how well your community is doing look at how the arts are doing.” If you’ve got a thriving arts community then your population has time for relaxation and money to be spent on luxuries.
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