NEA's Landesman Plans Visits to Memphis, Nashville as Part of 'Art Works' Tour

Memphis and Nashville will be on the travel itinterary of National Endowment for the Arts chair Rocco Landesman in November as part of his "Art Works" Tour announced Wednesday. Landesman announced the launch of his nationwide tour as he delivered the keynote address to close the 2009 national Grantmakers in the Arts Conference: Navigating the Arts of Change in Brooklyn, New York.

Plans for the Tennessee leg of his tour has not been finalized, but Landesman is expected to visit the Volunteer State during the week of November 30.

And Nashville and Memphis weren't the only Tennessee cities in the spotlight Wednesday as he talked about the impact of art on American lives: "Chattanooga, Tennessee, has been transformed by its arts district," he told his audience, adding, "In my hometown, St. Louis, Citigarden-a public sculputre park-has provided a reason for people to live downtown rather than just get in their cars after a Cardinals game and drive back to the suburbs."

Confirmed by the United States Senate in August as the tenth chair of the NEA, Landesman is best known as a Broadway theatre producer and the president of Jujamcyn Theaters. Born and raised in St. Louis, he became president of Jujamcyn in 1987; Jujamcyn owns and operates five theaters on the Main Stem, including the ST. James, Al Hirschfeld, August Wilson, Eugene O'Neill and Walter Kerr theaters.

Landesman's tour will open in Peoria, Illinois, during the week of November 6, beginning with a round-table discussion about the impact of the arts that will be moderated by Carol Coletta, president and CEO of CEOs for Cities, and will include Peoria's political, civic, business and arts leaders. It will also include a tour of Peoria's "warehouse district" and a performance of Eastlight Theatre's production of the musical Rent.

Landesman's visit to Peoria comes as the behest of Kathy Chitwood, executive director of the Eastlight Theatre, and Suzette Boulais, executive director of Arts Partners of Central Illinois. The "Art Works" tour will continue to St. Louis, Missouri, the week of November 23, prior to his trip to Nashville and Memphis. Further stops on the tour will include visits to the states of California, Idaho, Kentucky and Washington in the coming months.

In his remarks Wednesday, Landesman laid out the guiding principle that will inform his work at the agency, which he said could be summed up in two words: "Art works." Landesman explained that he means this in three ways:

"'Art Works' is a noun. They are the books, crafts, dances, designs, drawings, films, installations, music, musicals, paintings, plays, performances, poetry, textiles, and sculptures that are the creation of artists.

"'Art works' is a verb. Art works on and within people to change and inspire them; it addresses the need people have to create, to imagine, to aspire to something more.

"'Art works' is a declarative sentence: arts jobs are real jobs that are part of the real economy. Art workers pay taxes, and art contributes to economic growth, neighborhood revitalization, and the livability of American towns and cities."

Landesman said that "in the coming months, I look forward to seeing downtown sculpture gardens, art walks along waterfronts, public performances and exhibitions, adaptive reuse of abandoned buldings and subsidized work spaces for artists. Despite the economic realities we are all confronting, art continues to work."

Further, Landesman contended that if he "has anything to say about it, there is a new NEA, I actually think I'm coming into a better situation than my predecessors did because of the heavy lifting that they've already done."

Landesman praised the efforts of past NEA chairs, Dana Gioia.and Nashvillian Bill Ivey: "[They] worked tirelessly to build strong relationship on Capitol Hill and to re-establish the NEA as a respected, bipartisan agency with a presence in every state and most Congressional districts. The perception of an NEA chair cozying up to a select few of the high arts impresarios at galas in New York and Los Angeles is long gone."

Before and after joining Jujamcyn, Landesman produced some of the most successful shows on Broadway, including Big River (1985 Tony Award winner for Best Musical, composed by Nashville's own Roger Miller), Angels in America: Millennium Approaches (1993 Tony Award winner for Best Play), Angels in America: Perestroika (1994 Tony Award winner for Best Play) and The Producers (2001 Tony Award winner for Best Musical). In 2005, he purchased Jujamcyn and operated it until he was tapped by President Obama to head the NEA.

Landesman has been active on numerous boards, including the Municipal Arts Society; the Times Square Alliance; The Actor's Fund; and the Educational Foundation of America. Landesman has also engaged the ongoing debate about arts policy, speaking at forums and writing numerous articles, focusing primarily on the relationship between the commercial and not-for-profit sectors of the American theater.

Landesman's biggest passions are theatre, baseball, horse racing and country music and, on any given day, he will insist that one of these is the perfect expression of American culture. At one time or another, he owned three minor league baseball teams, various racehorses, and a collection of Roger Miller long-playing records.

To help inform the "Art Works" tour, the NEA will host a blog at www.arts.gov where Americans can post examples and stories of how art works in their own communities. Landesman will also post dispatches from his tour on the website, beginning after his visit to Peoria on November 6.

To post a comment, you must register and login.