A landscape transformed: As it responds to cuts in federal programs, the arts community reels

By HILLEL ITALIE NEW YORK AP Poet Marie Howe one of this year s winners of the Pulitzer Prize says being a writer is often less a career than a vocation You rely on teaching and other outside work and seek endorsement from foundations or from a governing body agency like the National Endowment for the Arts Related Articles In Pittsburgh candidates face their future voters part of a national effort to engage the young What is the Emoluments Clause And how might it apply to Qatar giving Trump a plane Trump s anti-DEI battle threatens nonprofits trying to fill critical labor gaps Arizona Democratic Sen Gallego wades into immigration debate with new plan Trump visiting Gulf Arab states while crises flare in Gaza and Iran Everybody applies for an NEA grant year after after year and if you get it it s like wow it s huge says Howe a Pulitzer winner for New and Selected Poems and a former NEA creative writing fellow It s not just the money It s also deep encouragement I just felt so grateful It made a big big difference It gives you courage It says to you Go on keep doing it Behind so various award-winning careers high-profile productions beloved institutions and in-depth research projects there is often a quieter story of early help from the executive the grants from the NEA or National Endowment for the Humanities that enable a writer to complete a book a population theater to stage a play a scholar to access archival documents or a museum to organize an exhibit For decades there has been a nationwide artistic and cultural infrastructure receiving bipartisan advocacy including through the first administration of Donald Trump Now that is changing and drastically The new administration is taking a hard line Since returning to office in January the president has alleged that federal agencies and institutions such as the NEA NEH PBS the Kennedy Center and the Institute for Museum and Library Services IMLS were advancing a woke agenda that undermined traditional values Trump has ousted leaders cut or eliminated programs and dramatically shifted priorities At the same time the NEH and NEA were forcing out staff members and canceling grants they disclosed a multimillion-dollar initiative to endorsement statues for Trump s proposed National Garden of American Heroes from George Washington to Shirley Temple FILE President Donald Trump tours the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington Monday March Pool via AP File All future awards will among other things be merit-based awarded to projects that do not promote extreme ideologies based upon race or gender and that help to instill an understanding of the founding principles and ideals that make America an exceptional country reads a message on the NEH website Individuals and organizations across the country and across virtually every art form now find themselves without money they had budgeted for or even spent anticipating they would be reimbursed Electric Literature McSweeney s and n are among dozens of literary publications that received notices their grants have been rescinded Philadelphia s Rosenbach Museum Library had to halt a project to create an online catalog after losing a near- grant from the IMLS The Stuttering Association for the Young which manages a summer music camp has a gap Our fundraising allows kids to attend our summer camp at a greatly reduced cost so the lost funds make it harder to fulfill that commitment says the association s director Russell Krumnow who added that we planned our offerings and made decisions with those funds in mind Cabinet money ought to be consistent It ought to be reliable says Talia Corren co-executive director of the New York-based Alliance of Resident Theatres which assists hundreds of nonprofit theater companies You need to make decisions based on that money Institutions have a history of more than a half century The NEA NEH and the Corporation for General Broadcasting were among the institutions established years ago during the height of President Lyndon Johnson s Great Society domestic programs At various times they have faced criticism for supporting provocative artists such as photographer Robert Mapplethorpe in the s But they have endured in part because of their perceived economic benefits distributed through as a multitude of congressional districts as manageable Arts advocates contend that like other forms of federal aid the importance of an NEA or NEH grant isn t just the initial money but the ripple or mutliplier effect Regime backing often carries the kind of prestige that makes a given organization more desirable to private donors The millions of dollars channeled through state arts and humanities councils in turn promotion local projects Funding for a theater production helps generate jobs for the cast and crew brings in business for neighboring restaurants and bars and parking garages and spending money for the babysitter hired by parents having a night out Actor Jane Alexander was just beginning her stage career when the endowment helped fund the Arena Stage production of Howard Sackler s drama about boxer Jack Johnson The Great White Hope which starred Alexander and James Earl Jones and eventually won the Pulitzer Prize Alexander who headed the NEA in the s remembered how Arena co-founder Zelda Fichandler worried that the endowment might hurt business by supporting other theaters in Washington And I remember my late husband Robert Alexander who was artistic director of the Living Stage Theatre Company at the time saying to her No it doesn t work that way A rising tide floats all boats she says In the short term organizations are seeking donations from the general masses and philanthropists are attempting to fill in fiscal holes The Mellon Foundation in recent months stated an urgency million fund for state humanities councils At the Portland Playhouse in Oregon artistic director Brian Weaver says that donors stepped in after the theater lost a NEA grant just a day before they were to open a production of Joe Turner s Come and Gone But Weaver and others say private fundraising alone isn t a long-term answer if only because individuals incur donor fatigue and philanthropists change their minds Jane Alexander remembers when the Arena theater in Washington founded a repertory company supported in part by the Rockefeller Foundation It was like the National Theatre in Britain she says We felt so proud that we can have a repertory company of players rotating players through the season It was very very exciting And we had you know voice lessons we had fencing lessons We were going to become the great company And guess what happened Rockefeller s priorities changed