A New Year’s Resolution to save the arts

The arts, by nature, invite interpretations, challenge perceptions, dare audiences to react. But there seems to only be one read of the current state of the arts in America as the curtain rises on 2021: These are voices in danger of being silenced.

Box office receipts write the script. TRG Arts, an analytics firm, reveals that ticket revenues plummeted 96.3 percent between November 2019 and November 2020.

No industry survives with a drop- off of 96.3 percent. So a cash infusion for more than 150 Connecticut organizations from the COVID Relief Fund for the Arts grants blares like a late wake- up alarm.

It’s a healthy boost in many cases, such as the $ 551,400 going to New Haven’s Long Wharf Theater and $ 532,100 for the Goodspeed Opera House Foundation in East Haddam. The fund also was sprinkled throughout the state, with Stamford Symphony, for example, getting a $ 185,600 grant, while $ 365,800 went to the Westport Country Playhouse and $ 31,400 to Greenwich- based BackCountry Jazz.

But it’s mere life support for most of these organizations, and many nonprofits were not eligible for the funding, which is overseen by the Department of

Economic and Community Development.

It is the arts that remind us of what we’re missing in this time of social isolation.

Theaters are where we laugh — and cry — together. This is a definition of community.

The arts are an expression of the soul. They project America’s diversity, its richness of voices and opinions.

Personal screens, whether mammoth ones in home theaters or tiny ones stored in pockets, have been invaluable to maintaining sanity during these last 10 months. But they also contribute to making us a more insular nation.

We are better as a chorus, not a solo. As a mosaic, not a pencil sketch. As a band, not a solo act.

This crisis calls for elected officials and landlords to tap into their own creative resources. Empty storefronts, for example, can be lent to artists for temporary studio or rehearsal space, potentially luring glimpses into the creative process from curious passersby. And the public must seize opportunities to kick in, such as Fairfield County’s Giving Day, slated this year for Feb. 25.

We cannot allow the curtains to drop, ghost lights to be extinguished, marquees to remain vacant.

From President- elect Joe Biden to every governor, mayor and first selectman to, yes, every once and future audience member, this is a New Year’s Resolution that must be fulfilled: Save the arts.

We are better as a chorus, not a solo. As a mosaic, not a pencil sketch. As a band, not a solo act.