June 12, 2025
“It’s never been more dire than it is now.”
On the current proposed cuts to NEA/NEH/PBS
The facts bear repeating. Some have forgotten and many never knew them. The National Endowment for the Arts was formed in 1965 to help nurture the arts as they have been supported in countries older and more culturally invested than ours. Lyndon Johnson signed into law the act that created the NEA and the National Endowment for the Humanities, saying, “We in America have not always been kind to the artists and the scholars who are the creators and the keepers of our vision.” That vision encompasses our shared history and the record of how we - all of us - came to be Americans.
The NEA serves the entire country. 40% of the grant budget is awarded to the states to distribute through their programs, and the other 60% goes to those who apply for grants directly through the NEA. The money is not intended as a handout; it's development funding that is still critical and demonstrably generative. From Forbes Magazine (2023): "According to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, the nation’s arts and entertainment sector (nonprofit and commercial) is a $1.02 trillion industry that supports 4.9 million jobs and is 4.2 percent of the nation’s economy – larger than sectors such as construction, transportation, and agriculture." From NASAA stats: "Every $1 the NEA invests in grants leverages $9 in local and private matches.” That funding supports the work of writers, painters, sculptors, musicians, actors, dancers, designers, directors, architects, folk artists, teachers, administrators of the arts - all those who show and tell the diverse stories of how we’ve survived and thrived on the planet.
Even if you don’t support the arts, they support you. The arts are by nature subjective; that’s their job and it's what gives them their unique power and value. It's also what draws debate; because it is subjective, it cannot and should not always please or even appeal to everyone. We’ll never agree on everything. That’s the point. The craft and strength of the arts are in their capacity to explore any perspective - including yours - and to create forms of communicating ideas about it. It’s the only sector whose purpose is personal expression. The product is not from a factory but from an idea or experience you may or may not share or even understand - though even if you don’t, it can still have the ability to engage you. But regardless of intent or content, it is a product, created as professionally as any on an assembly line, and it's a proven sector of the economy and a community driver.
Many people have only the vaguest idea of how the arts are made. It's seldom simple and requires time, skill, strategy, and often lots of hands working in unison. A few years ago I was directing a technical rehearsal for a play and someone who knew nothing about the process was there. After an hour of watching us (a team of dozens, most of whom the audience never sees) stop frequently to adjust timing of lighting and projections, rhythm of entrances and exits, tweaks to levels and mix of microphones, and notes to the cast about integrating all those things, the man (a chemist) said to me with faint amazement, "This is work!" And that was just one hour of one project, and a process that often takes a year or more and sometimes hundreds of people in the weeds and details of concept, design, and execution. (This business is glamorous about 5% of the time, and mainly to those who aren't in it.)
Seeing a finished product can make it seem easy, even fun. That's as it should be, but knowing about the work behind it comes in handy when it comes to economics and "the bottom line.” In the commercial world of Broadway, generally non musicals are capitalized at $3 to 5 million each, and musicals at $10 to 20 million - standard costs for goods and professional services in that arena. This year, Boop! The Musical was capitalized at $26 million, and closed after only 112 performances, losing most of that $26m after 25 years of development to get it produced. Years ago when producing costs began to balloon, the late great Harold Prince cashed in his glittering six decade career chips, saying “I stopped producing because I didn’t want to raise $10 million. I’m not sure I could and I wouldn’t want to make the effort.” Contrast that with the non-profit regional alternative. A single professional theatre production at that level costs, minimally, $100,000. Not a drop in the bucket but hardly the fortune it takes to roll the dice on Broadway.
What you see in a finished product (center of image) surrounded by what it takes to finish it.
The need for an alternative to the volatile commercial arts world is what’s always driven the regional movement that the NEA has had a strong presence in supporting. Professional non profit regional theatres, for example, developed all over the country from the 40’s forward as artists wanted to create more opportunities beyond Broadway and communities realized those theatres brought them an arts standard, an economic building block, and a cultural hub they could call their own. A regional theatre’s operation creates a format for predictable production with professional standards. Regional production isn’t exactly cheap, but it enables a seasonal slate of plays to be staged for $30 million and under, a fraction of single-show Broadway costs. ($30m is the top of the range; many professional regional theatres produce annual seasons on $1m-10m expense budgets, depending on theatre size and tier). By the 60's these companies were in virtually every major and mid-size U.S. market, with the help of the NEA and local agencies, bringing the potential for a new producing path, as well as a research-and-development network for new works, new ideas, and of course employment. (The regional movement significantly supports arts careers. For example, The League of Resident Theatres (LORT), is an alliance of the largest professional nonprofit U.S. theatres in the U.S. Collectively they offer more contracts to professional actors and stage managers than Broadway and national tours combined.)
In 1961 when the Ford Foundation gave $9 million to boost U.S. regional theatre expansion, there were a dozen or so professional companies; by 2023 there were 2,000+ (via Theatre Communications Group). A form of the same has happened in every discipline. Film producer/director Sidney Pollack (Tootsie, Out of Africa) said, "There are an awful lot of talented people in the U.S. who can't get in the position to get someone to give them 15 or 20 million to make a picture. So there's been what we call regional filmmaking, or independent filmmaking.” The same applies to PBS. Since its founding in 1969, it has grown to include 544 grantees (television and radio) countrywide, 245 of them in rural areas (via Corporation for Public Broadcasting).
But even those alternatives are challenging. I spent 40+ years in the non-profit arts world and this I can say: there is seldom an ounce of fat on that bottom line. Non profits typically derive a maximum of 60% of their budget from earned income sources. The equation for survival is an ever-shifting balance of sales, special events, education programs, and investment income, along with grants and gifts. That equation has already been badly disrupted by changing entertainment and attendance trends, and of course by the pandemic, just as commercial theatre has faced its own challenges. After a devastating post-Covid period, Broadway had its best financial year ever last year, but attendance itself didn't set that record, sales receipts did, driven by major stars who took time to help the cause appearing in shows and drawing audiences - ones willing to pay whopping new single ticket prices of $900+ to see them. But that also carries the potential consequences of making the work dependent on a few and inaccessible for far too many.
As commercial producing costs have skyrocketed, we've seen the models that built that alternative movement begin to fail, becoming obsolete in the wake of unpredictable recessions and disasters, shifting demographics, and endless new entertainment choices available at your fingertips without leaving home. Some nonprofits have survived but for most the waves of change have come exponentially faster and higher than these infrastrucure-heavy companies can absorb. Drastic staff and program reductions are the norm today, and closings of once healthy decades-old companies are routine. In a 2023 NY Times interview, NEA theatre director Greg Reiner said, “We’re seeing two to three organizations closing a month now.” In 2022, New Haven’s Long Wharf Theatre, a major regional theatre founded in 1965, moved out of its building and became an itinerant company to save money. A friend who works at a well-established and (for now) well supported theatre described it to me as "never more dire than it is now.” And that was before the proposed NEA cuts. NEA support may or may not make the difference (we are almost certainly seeing the end of this arts era, but with such a sudden pull of the funding plug, many won't have the chance they were promised to find out, or a reasonable opportunity to reinvent the wheel.
Losing the regional nonprofit component of the arts mix affects not only artists’ employment, it impacts communities. Again, Forbes: “Nationally these organizations generated an additional 78.4 billion to event-related expenditures by their audiences.” And it also closes a development door for commercial potential. Many successful Broadway productions, including the phenomenon Hamilton and the 2025 Pulitzer Prize/Tony Award winning play Purpose, had long gestation periods being refined at multiple nonprofits before landing on Broadway. That kind of jackpot success is too capricious to be a given or an actual goal, but the odds for quality improve with the more affordable, focused development time nonprofits can provide. And the odds could stand improving: historically only 20% of Broadway shows ever even recoup their investment, let alone turn a profit. Accepting the 2025 Best Play award for Purpose on the Tony Awards telecast, Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins said, “I encourage everyone to support their local theatre. A lot of great stuff happens in New York but a lot more happens out in rhe regions. So use your next commercial break to google ‘a local theatre near me’!”
It's essential to balance a budget, as it is for businesses to rethink sustainability, especially the arts. But that arc is a marathon not a sprint, especially for the arts, where long established practices in America include grants like those from the NEA. Sudden, arbitrary cuts to that funding (or of entire agencies) may make a weak philosophical point but they will have deeper negative effects on economies (arts and related sectors
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If we are in a debate about the validity of the NEA and public funding for the arts, which is a fair conversation to have, that should happen in tandem with an awareness of the facts and the implications, and a clear, sensible timetable to reconceive organizations and fiscal responsibility for them. Again, it's a marathon. The NEA's 60 year existence is not even as long as the average life expectancy of a human, let alone a cultural paradigm. The appropriation to the NEA typically constitutes about 0.003% of the federal budget, a good part of that going to smaller, more vulnerable regional organizations, as well as underserved communities. That’s hardly a hefty elitist handout as some claim - especially considering the much bigger subsidies granted to other business sectors - and hardly a cut significant enough to the bottom line to justify the loss of return on investment. The NEA functions as a critical component of and catalyst for a national arts system that hasn’t yet achieved its potential. As of 2024 the NEA funding is 0.009% of U.S. GDP (contrasted with UK public arts funding of 0.46% - and a European average that is even higher).
Arts funding is an easy target for the uninformed, just as arts programs in schools are shortsightedly the first to be cut in lean times, ignoring the reality that their components have been documented to create innovation, confidence, determination, teamwork, and timely product delivery. (The curtain is going up at 7:00 on Tuesday with 1,000 paying people watching, regardless.) A decade ago I was guest directing at Davidson College and when I asked one of the students (who actually didn't want a career in the arts) why she was majoring in theatre, she said she and her parents felt there was no sure thing in careers these days and knew the arts would prepare her for life and lots of potential jobs. I also remember another exchange initiated by a bank teller who had read the morning press about a play we were opening. She seemed excited about it, but when I asked her if she was coming to see it, she said (nicely), "No." Even when I offered her comps to see it for free she declined, saying she'd never developed an arts habit. "I think you have to 'get it' when you're a kid," she said. No kid - of any age - will be able “get it” if it isn’t available. That’s not good news for anyone. Including you.
It takes people with visionary thinking to leverage the unique advantages of the arts - cultural, financial and educational. I hope you are one of those people, and as every business finds its way, I trust you will advocate for the assistance the NEA provides to this one, and by extension to all of us.
- Steve Umberger
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A shorter version of that was sent to Senate and House reps of my districts. I didn't ask for a response but got one from Caleb Theodros' Senate office.
"While decisions regarding NEA funding are ultimately made at the federal level, Sen. Theodros understands how deeply such changes could impact local and state arts communities, including the organizations and economies you referenced. Although the Senator does not have a vote in federal appropriations, he believes strongly in the economic and cultural value of the arts, and he will continue advocating for robust state-level support."
Meanwhile, with the tea leaves read, all 10 Directors overseeing grants at the NEA resigned, along with senior staff members.
So in this reckoning the message seems clear: in whatever way you can, support what matters to you.
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About the pictures: at the top, these are some of those people no one ever sees in a live production, but it couldn't happen without them. Top row: production process in various stages, second & third rows: set models by designers and below them the finished sets on stage. Each one represents a process that involved dozens of people for many months. The designers are, left to right, James Pyne (King Lear, People's Light, PA), Mark Pirolo (Romeo and Juliet, NC Shakes), Joe Gardner (The Christians, Playworks at Blumenthal), Frank Ludwig (Over the Tavern, Riverside Theatre, FL). The bare bulb is a ghost light, a tradition for unoccupied theatres. This is what stages looks like more and more frequently these days.
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