They Shoot Actors, Don't They?

"There is a very real danger that corporate support of the theater would limit the political range of the theater performed. The government has in the past funded left-wing productions, which private corporations would not support." --Joseph Papp. producer of the New York Shakespeare Festival. A Chorus Line, and Pirates of Penzance

"Without adequate federal funding, we will have fewer rotating exhibits."   --Jane Heffner, director of Development, Whitney Museum of American Art

"We are more concerned with the possibility of damage when federal funding becomes too free. We feel that the cats in welfare, Medicare, and food stamps are so severe that we would be unjustified in not reducing the budget for the National Endowment for the Arts."   --Terri Holpert, Budget Examiner, Office of Management and Budget

In fiscal year 1982, President Reagan has recommended the U.S. spend $89 million on military bands.

In fiscal year 1982, the proposed Reagan budget for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is $88 million, 50 per cent less than the figure suggested by former President Carter. The administration points out that when the NEA and NEH (National Endowment for the Humanities) were founded by Johnson in 1965, they had a combined budget of $2 million. Trimming arts funding is not an attempt to eliminate federal support for the arts. Reagan's spokesmen say. It's just an effort to keep things in perspective.

The NEA finds matching grants for public television. It funds exhibits and theater productions, opera and ballet; it foots the bill for necessary but mundane chores which would never interest a private supporter, like the cataloguing of the Whitney's entire collection. It backs controversial exhibits which corporations hesitate to support. But most of all, a grant from the NEA legitimizes an organization in the eyes of corporate and private patrons. A theater company with a $100,000 federal grant usually finds private sector support much easier to come by. "The NEA has generated at least $5 for every federal dollar spent over the past five years," Florence Lowe, director of Public Affairs at the NEA, says. "Support for the arts in the private sector has increased tenfold."

Pruning the program won't destroy the big institutions; the Metropolitan Opera or the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York may be closed a little more often and offer fewer new productions or exhibits. But most such organizations receive less than 10 per cent of their funding from the government, so they'll just have to fund raise a little harder.

But there are many others to consider. The Arena Stage, in Washington, D.C., is one of many small regional theaters throughout the country that depend heavily on government support. When Holpert says professional theater "will not be hurt too much," she is talking about the industry. When Papp speaks of the dissolution of theaters, he is talking about institutions like the Arena Stage.

Thomas Fichandlar, executive director of the Arena Stage, has been fighting the government since mid-spring. He was upset enough when they told him he wouldn't be getting quite as much federal funding as he'd counted on for fiscal 1981. But then the administration froze funds that had already been promised, but not yet allocated. Of the $32 million originally frozen, only $6.6 million remain frozen, and Fichlandar says, it's a damn good thing. "Most of the money had already been spent before they froze it," he says. But having barely salvaged the last quarter of his season, Fichlandar now has to fight for next year's season.

"The Arena Stage had been promised $225,000 for fiscal 1982--not really enough, but we'd made plans for the money already. Now they tell us we're not getting the full amount. I think it's a breach of promise on the part of the government to promise these funds, and then to arbitrarily pull back at the last minute. There's no way the private sector will be able to make up the slack," Fichlandar says.

Carl Schaeffer, treasurer and executive producer of the Actors' Studio, echoes Fichlandar's fears: "It has been proved in the past that the general public is unable to support the arts adequately, there is no common denominator in the arts--for example, the many varied styles of theater--as there is in rock music. Despite the incentives provided by the government in the form of a tax deductible contribution of up to 5 per cent toward the arts, statistics show that only 21/2 per cent of profits are channeled toward the arts on the average. Less than 1/2 per cent goes toward the performing arts. Since this seems likely that many of the non-profit institutions, the small companies where the theater originates, will cease to exist."

And Rep. S. William Green '55, a New York Republican who declared himself opposed to the depth of cuts, said recently he understood the artist's fears. "There's been a sense that Reagan's proposed cuts for the NEA come as a response to what we felt to be the excessive politicization of that agency by the Carter administration," Green says. "Although I feel that the NEA has come to be relied on excessively by corporations to show them what to support, either through challenge grants, or through direct support. I do not feel that these corporations are capable of evaluating the arts themselves...When the private sector is left to decide for itself, there will be a definite trend toward funding what is traditional rather than what is new. Like most bureaucracies, the NEA should be trimmed, of course, though not 50 per cent."

And even if the money does come from corporate coffers, it may be a mixed blessing. Corporate support for an organization as large as the Met, or MOMA, has subtler influence on the final product than a similar grant does to a small group, such as an off-off-Broadway organization. "Where individual foundations (for example, the Charles E. Culpepper Foundation, or the Artists Foundation) are more likely to support experimental works." Frank Rich '71, chief drama critic for The New York Times, says, "Private supporters tend to play it safe and support works that reflect their tastes in general. The public relations value of such supporters tend to play it safe and support works that reflect their tastes in general. The public relations value of such support for corporations cannot be underestimated." Papp agrees with both Green and Rich: "Although there will not be a change in what is seen in the theater in the immediate future, history shows that corporate support tends to impose more restraints or limitations, than does federal support."

Others worry less that private funds will cramp styles. "Art has always had little to do with the economic currents of society; perhaps the cuts will provide an anxiety stimulus," Irving Karp, owner of the OK Harris gallery, in New York's SoHo, says. "I don't believe that there will be change in the genre of the works produced in the theater," Bob Moss, producer of March of the Falsettos, and current executive director of Playwrights Horizons, adds. "We have always produced what we believe in, what we know how to produce, rather than what we thought might make money. My guess is that the principal effect will be quantity, not quality."

But basically, everyone's guessing. "It is really hard to predict exactly what the effect of these measures will be; we don't know who's going to be cut, so we can't gauge the effects," Rich commented.

Some six weeks ago, President Reagan formed a Task Force on the Arts and Humanities, whose purpose was to determine the past effect of government support, and to gauge, as best it could, the result of the proposed 50 per cent cut. The Task Force, headed by Charlton Heston, includes such notables as Beverly Sills, general director of the New York City Opera. Roger Stevens, chairman of the board of trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and Nancy Hanks, ex-NEA chairman.

Rather than become a rubber stamp organization, the Task Force's report to the President seems to have awakened support for continued NEA funding. The House Appropriations subcommittee, chaired by Rep. Sidney Yates (D-Mass), has recommended a budget of $157.5 million, while the House Committee on Education and Labor and the Senate Subcommittee on Education have recommended $126.9 million and $119.3 million, respectively. The $88 million figure seems to have bitten the dust, but the precise amount will not be determined until the Senate convenes at the end of July. The OMB still insists it wants deep slashes.

The proposed cuts in the arts budget mirror other Reagan recommendations, and the reaction of those affected has been typically loud, though of dubious value. Art may not seem of paramount importance to the average American, especially as he watches the Social Security system go under. And that is what makes these cuts all the more serious, those affected say. Rather than try to instill a sense of culture as a factor in education, the cuts reduce the arts once again to a secondary position. The outcome of this battle will be instructive. Our government is reducing the bread it provides; can it do away with the circuses as well?