‘A piece of our humanity’

Arts organizations fear loss of federal funding would devastate programs

The arts won’t be silenced, but President Donald Trump’s proposal to eliminate funds for the National Endowment for the Arts and other cultural agencies would squeeze the many arts groups in Connecticut that rely in part on federal money.

Leaders of arts organizations are hopeful that the NEA, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting will be spared in the next fiscal year’s budget, as they have overcome threats to their existence in the past.

But they also fear that artists without a large constituency, those who push the envelope in their work and audiences whose tickets are subsidized by federal money would be hurt the most. Organizations that expose young people to the arts could also feel the squeeze. One of those is Music Haven, a tuition-free nonprofit organization that brings individual and group lessons to youths who live in low-income areas of New Haven.

“I’m honestly infuriated because the arts is a huge part of human expression,” said Robert Oakley, a junior at Wilbur Cross High School in New Haven, who takes viola lessons at Music Haven.

“Music Haven is everything,” said Oakley, who also plays piano, flute, recorder and clarinet. “It’s love, it’s expression, it’s connection, it’s family, and all through

music, which really displays the power of music … because music is one thing that brings everyone together.

“It’s a horrible thing trying to cut out the arts. It’s basically taking away a piece of our humanity,” he said.

Cristofer Zunun, a sophomore at Cooperative Arts and Humanities High School in New Haven, has been playing violin since at least third grade and said performing has helped his self-confidence.

“I honestly don’t know what I would do without music,” he said. “I would be a much different person than I am right now.”

Karina Irizarry was hired at Music Haven as administrative and student support coordinator after doing her work-study there as a University of New Haven student. “I see it doing a lot for the kids,” she said. “They learn mentoring, they learn how to communicate, how to work together. They also learn just how to be real people. … What I love about it is the kids are so loving and welcoming and they make you feel at home. Music Haven is home to me.”

Executive Director Mandi Jackson said Music Haven is not in danger of closing down, even without the NEA money it receives, which is matched by the state Office of the Arts. This year, Music Haven received $10,000 in NEA money toward its $600,000 budget, and federal funds have made up as much as 5 percent of the organization’s budget in some years. “NEA funding has been one of the few sustainable sources of arts funding … There’s not a lot of sources out there,” Jackson said.

But Music Haven stands to lose more than its NEA grant. After-school, violence-prevention and other programs, which also benefit Music Haven, also face big cuts in Trump’s budget, Jackson said.

Without NEA money, all arts organizations will have to “put more pressure on funders,” Jackson said. “We’re competing for all the same donation dollars. So when you cut public money … it’s just increased competition from an already crowded field.” Relying more on the private sector is “not a sustainable model,” she said.

In fiscal 2016, the NEA received $148 million, which went to every congressional district in the country, according to its website. Since its founding in 1965, the endowment has awarded more than $5 billion in grants.

An email sent out by the Arts Council of Greater New Haven pointed out that the NEA represents 0.004 percent of the federal budget, leverages more than $600 million in matching grants and generates 4.8 million jobs.

Well-known organizations such as Elm Shakespeare Company and the International Festival of Arts and Ideas will be affected, but so will numerous smaller groups and artists, said Daniel Fitzmaurice, executive director of the arts council.

“The NEA is a very small funder for most of our organizations but a symbolic Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval,” he said.

Eliminating the budget for the arts and humanities endowments and for public broadcasting “really works against the Trump agenda of creating American jobs, hiring American people,” Fitzmaurice said. “It’s a pretty good deal, in Trump’s language, if you take into account for every dollar in NEA funding the organization typically raises $7 … from donors, foundations, funding support.”

Federal money

Combined, the NEA, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting receive about $740 million annually.

Ultimately, the administration’s proposal must go through the congressional budget process.

The conservative Heritage Foundation has advocated cutting the organizations for decades and has again in “A Blueprint for Balance: A Federal Budget for 2017.” Paul Winfree, who was lead editor on the document, is now the White House director of budget policy.

“We fundamentally believe the arts are able to flourish independently of the federal government,” said Romina Boccia, the foundation’s deputy director.

Among the problems she says federal financing can create: A distortion of the art market as private money migrates to projects seen as having the “federal stamp of approval” and “cultural cronyism.”

Such cronyism, she alleges, can be seen in the NEA’s distribution of grants to regional arts projects in every state. “Not necessarily because it creates the best art but because they [the NEA] are trying to secure political support so they can continue to exist,” Boccia said.

In a March 16 press briefing, White House budget director Mick Mulvaney said “there’s completely defensible reasons” for eliminating funds for the agencies. “I put myself in the shoes of that steelworker in Ohio, the coal-mining family in West Virginia, the mother of two in Detroit, and I’m saying, ‘OK, I have to go ask these folks for money and I have to tell them where I’m going to spend it.’ Can I really go to those folks, look them in the eye and say, ‘Look, I want to take money from you and I want to give it to the Corporation of Public Broadcasting’? That is a really hard sell.”

Arts advocates in Connecticut, however, are quick to defend the programs.

Kristina Newman-Scott, Connecticut’s director of cultural programs, said the NEA allocated $740,000 last year to the state, which allocated $1.4 million from the general fund. NEA grants to local groups are matched by state money, she said.

Newman-Scott said the arts in Connecticut generate $660 million in economic activity. “It’s a combination of both the spending of nonprofit arts and cultural institutions as well as the spending of the many patrons and audiences those institutions attract,” she said.

“We reach every region in the state of Connecticut,” she said. “Our funding reaches every corner of the state.” And unlike private donors, the state has to ensure that its giving is equitable and takes diversity into account.

The arts are worth far more than their entertainment and economic value, said Newman-Scott, who oversees the Office of the Arts and the Office of Tourism. As an example, the Hartford-based Judy Dworin Performance Project goes into the York Correctional Institution, the state’s women’s prison, using “performance art as a tool to help women re-enter society and reconnect with their family.”

“Over 80 percent of Americans believe the arts are fundamental” and students fare better, with higher graduation rates, when they are involved in the arts, Newman-Scott said.

Without the agency, “We would have to reimagine our entire grant-making program and so much of it would have to be cut down to bare bones.”

“I don’t think Trump is going to be able to pass this without a lot of pushback,” she said. “It’s the first time in the nation’s history that a president has proposed eliminating the NEA.”

Amy Wynn, executive director of the Northwest Connecticut Arts Council, said the NEA, along with the state Office of the Arts, serves an important function. When sponsors and donors see “that this proposal has passed a very important milestone … they’re more likely to give to that organization or that artist.”

Wynn said her agency, which serves 25 towns, won’t accept the demise of the NEA. “We’re attacking it. We don’t really want to admit defeat at this point. Our main objective is to really reinforce those legislators in Washington, both Democrat and Republican, who still believe in this very important institution, although it represents such a minuscule portion of the federal budget.”

Among the organizations the council supports, aided by NEA funds, are the Warner Theatre in Torrington, the Litchfield Jazz Festival, the Sharon Playhouse and after-school programs throughout the region. It also sponsors the Open Your Eyes Studio Tour featuring area artists.

In addition, “In our state there are some organizations that get funding direct from the NEA and that will dry up,” Wynn said. Without the money, arts groups “will have to charge what it costs to put on these productions. The level of innovation and outof-the-box thinking diminishes because they can’t afford to take that risk because they need to appeal to the masses.”

The NEA “ensures that truly innovative thinking is supported and people are allowed to experiment and to be innovative and not to do the same-old, same-old, not to dumb down the creative product in America.”

Oriented to the community

Joshua Borenstein, managing director of New Haven’s Long Wharf Theatre, said the theater receives $10,000 in direct NEA grants to support its $800,000 budget, but it also benefits from state grants supported by the endowment.

Without NEA money, Borenstein said, programs that reach into the community would be hurt the most. “We do special 11 a.m. performances for school groups. We’ll use NEA funds to help cover that cost,” he said. The public funds also help leverage donations from the private sector, he said.

Borenstein said that to make up $10,000, Long Wharf would have to sell 2,000 more tickets, and “that’s a lot of tickets for our market. Sometimes we don’t sell 2,000 tickets to a play.”

“The elimination of NEA funds is going to eliminate those programs for the people that have the least access to art,” Borenstein said. But he said he is hopeful the endowment’s budget won’t be eliminated. “It does have a lot of bipartisan support … It will be kept in one form or another,” he said.

Elaine Carroll, chief executive officer of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, echoed Borenstein in her concerns about “the ability to serve our community better” being hindered. Last year, 30,000 students attended performances for free, she said.

Concerts for children are performed at the Davis Street Arts and Academics School in New Haven and Shelton Intermediate School. Held at one time at the Omni New Haven Hotel, attendance more than tripled to 350 once the concerts were moved to the Davis Street school.

“That one grant from the NEA helped build the community relations and the understanding on our part of the responsiveness,” Carroll said. “It made more sense to get the people to attend more concerts in their neighborhood than to go downtown.”

The NHSO has performed nine world premieres in eight seasons and, Carroll said, “For an orchestra our size to do world premieres is really kind of a stretch.” The NEA allows the orchestra to support work by young composers, such as Hannah Lash, who is on the faculty of the Yale School of Music.

“Let your representatives know it’s important to you, because I think it makes a difference,” Carroll said.

Lee Godburn, chairman of the Middletown Commis-

sion on the Arts and a photographer, said he thinks the NEA will be saved. “Of course I’m concerned with reduced funding as everyone is, but somebody told me years ago … that they always threaten to reduce funding. … It’s a tail-wagger. They never do what they’re threatening to do. I think in this day and age even the most conservative politicians know how important the arts [are] to our lifestyle.”

Godburn said much of the commission’s support goes to “make up a lapse in the educational budget. … We certainly don’t want to see the children suffer and not get the arts support that they need.”

Stephan Allison, director of Middletown’s Arts and Culture Department, said a cut in the NEA money he receives through the state grant “would impact my ability to do my largest summer programs, my kids’ arts program and my July fireworks festival” because he wouldn’t be able to hire the additional help he needs to put them on. He added, “All the arts organizations pretty much in Middletown would be impacted by the loss of NEA funding and that affects the whole city.”

The commission and Arts and Culture Department also support organizations such as ARTFARM, Oddfellows Playhouse, Artists for World Peace and the Buttonwood Tree performing arts center.

Public television prepares

The Trump administration also would like to eliminate support for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which was allocated $445 million in fiscal 2016.

Jerry Franklin, president of Connecticut Public Broadcasting, said the threat is not new. “We have been preparing for this because we have had some trial runs with this legislation,” he said. “Eight years in a row under the George Bush administration, a similar bill was introduced.”

His nonprofit organization receives $1.9 million of its $21 million budget from the federal government but, in addition, 20 percent of the Public Broadcasting Service’s national schedule is supported by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, shows ranging from “Sesame Street” to “NOVA” to “Downton Abbey.”

“We have a plan that we would implement if we lose all our federal funding,” Franklin said. “We would force PBS to offer its programming on an a la carte basis.” Children’s shows, which make up about half the day’s programming, would have to be cut back. “That children’s genre is not supported” by sponsors, Franklin said. “That would take a hit. We don’t know to what extent but I would estimate that 30 percent of children’s programming would disappear.”

Franklin added that “without federal funding the pressure on public broadcasting would be to adopt some form of commercial programming. … That’s the last thing we need in Connecticut. … I have zero interest in running a commercial television station.”

Franklin, like others, said he was optimistic that public television and radio would be saved. “I really don’t think they want another battle with Big Bird,” he said, referring to past budget battles.

Frances “Bitsie” Clark, who served as director of the Arts Council of Greater New Haven from 1983 to 2002, called the proposed cuts “an absolute tragedy” but added, “This is par for the course. Arts are always beleaguered. It’s either feast or famine.”

In the 1980s, the council could spend $4,000 on a cocktail party but in 1991, “We ran out of money.”

“I really realized, in looking back, we made more progress when we didn’t have money than when we did.” She said that in the down days of the 1990s, many arts organizations worked together to put on an AIDS benefit called “Hearts for Life.”

“If the arts allow themselves to fold up and get mad and do nothing … you’re doomed. But the arts aren’t that way. They really are able to reach out and work together.”