BWW Exclusive: Despite Funding Threats, the National Endowment for the Arts is Vital to American Theatre

As reported by BWW last month, President Donald Trump's initiative to shrink government spending involves the elimination of the National Endowment for the Arts, an organization which provides funding and support to artistic projects throughout the nation.

While only encompassing approximately .004% of the federal budget, the NEA has tremendously impacted American theater, contributing a total of $335.5 million to theater and musical theater programs since its inception in 1966. That said, without this organization, the landscape of American theatre would look strikingly different, both in New York and around the country.

Since 1996, the NEA has supported a total of 102 Tony-nominated plays and musicals, including 35 Best Play/Musical winners. Some companies have received grants for Broadway productions specifically; Lincoln Center Theater, for example, secured a total of $125,000 for its revivals of THE KING AND I (2015) and SOUTH PACIFIC (2008), according to the NEA's grant listings. Others, however, use NEA funding for developmental programs or Off-Broadway and Regional productions, which may eventually find lives on Broadway stages.

Of this bunch are Vassar College and New York Stage & Film Company, whose jointly-created Powerhouse Season serves as an incubator for new plays and musicals. With up to $40,000 in NEA funding each year, this residency program for actors, directors, playwrights and designers presents developmental readings and workshops of new works. Just last season, the Best Play and Best Musical Tony Awards went to Powerhouse graduates THE HUMANS and HAMILTON; BRIGHT STAR, which premiered at Powerhouse in the same year as HAMILTON, was also nominated for Best Musical.

Powerhouse Season alum BRIGHT STAR benefitted from NEA grants:

Similarly, several Broadway productions have been birthed by Off-Broadway and regional theater companies, many of which, given their nonprofit natures, depend on grants and donations to produce new works. In 2008, Second Stage Theatre received $35,000 to develop NEXT TO NORMAL, a commercial success whose Broadway transfer ran for nearly two years. The 2015 revival of SPRING AWAKENING began at California's Deaf West Theatre, which used $20,000 to mount the production before its transfer to the Brooks Atkinson Theatre in New York. And, just last year, the NEA awarded $10,000 to Hartford Stage Company for its production of ANASTASIA, which will open on Broadway this April.

These commercial transfers, however, only encompass a fraction of what the NEA has made possible. Nonprofits such as Lincoln Center, Roundabout Theatre Company and Manhattan Theatre Club produce both on Broadway and off, making grants and donations crucial to their success in both markets. Similarly, many companies such as The Public, which receives $50,000 to $100,000 per year for its free Shakespeare in the Park program, have taken vital steps toward providing affordable and accessible theater, something that NEA funding can help stimulate.

The Public Theater's Shakespeare in the Park and its all-female production of THE TAMING OF THE SHREW benefitted from NEA funding:

But this financial heroism does not stop at professional New York Theater. Just as Off-Broadway companies receive aid, regional nonprofits across the country, such as the aforementioned Deaf West Theatre and Hartford Stage Company, reap the benefits of direct NEA grants; most recently, Deaf West received funding for its upcoming production of Edward Albee's AT HOME AT THE ZOO.

However, while companies like these can apply for grants from the NEA, many rely on funds from state arts agencies. Receiving 40% of the NEA's grant-making budget, these agencies are responsible for allocating funds to arts organizations within their respective states. About one quarter of these funds end up in rural or underprivileged communities, which often lack the artistic and financial resources that urban areas ooze. Even direct NEA grants succeed in reaching artistically malnourished areas, with over two-thirds of grants going to small or medium sized organizations, with less than $1.75 million in prior year expenditures.

In short, for many people, with the loss of NEA funds comes the loss of art. This, in turn, may create a national economic loss; according to Tony-winning actor and Actors Fund Chairman of the Board Brian Stokes Mitchell's statement on Facebook last month, the arts employ approximately 4.7 million workers and account for 4.2% of the nation's annual Gross Domestic Product.

But apart from the economic impacts, the loss of theater precedes a loss of cultural understanding and empathy. As Dramatists Guild president Doug Wright detailed in a recent statement, the arts as a whole "promote empathy, nourish the spirit, and increase our understanding of complex, eternal truths."

As NEA grants are abolished, so may be the outside funding they encourage, and, soon enough, the money that theaters require to mount such productions, and the empathy that they spur, might soon be gone.

It is also worth noting the greater symbolism of the NEA's elimination. In an interview with NJBIZ, Todd Schmidt, managing director of the Paper Mill Playhouse, contends that the biggest danger is the message sent on a national level, one that "diminishes the importance of arts to our society."

The loss of an organization as noteworthy as the NEA signifies that the arts, creative expression and the empathy that they create are insignificant, triggering a potentially even more drastic downfall.

While spurring the productions of Broadway's most beloved shows, Off-Broadway and regional hits, and even rural community productions, the NEA's contributions have been monumental to the American theatre, and their elimination may diminish the nation's capacity for, and perception of, theater.

To add your voice to those working to preserve the NEA, sign the White House's official petition, or those of Change.org, PEN America and Americans for the Arts Action Fund.

To learn more about the NEA and its contributions, visit the organization's official website.