Theater and Arts Funding

A few months ago, I was contacted by someone who works for one of those organizations that helps fund the arts in their state.

Arts funding can be a crucial part of a theater's survival, but like anything else, it can sometimes feel extremely politicized.

That's why I was so interested in speaking with someone who recently left their job at one such organization, especially when I heard the terms weren't all that amicable.

Here's the interview:

ME:  I have never been so excited to get dirt as I am right now.

THEM:  (Laughs.)  See, now this feels very tawdry.

ME:  It is tawdry.  The views are going to be outrageous.

THEM:  The wild world of arts funding.

ME:  But it IS wild if you're a theater person--or an artist--or someone who's had to try to get money from one of these places.  There's a lot of mystery surrounding them, I think.

THEM:  Is there?  I find them to be pretty transparent.

ME:  But you also said there's a lot of backroom stuff going on?

THEM:  Oh, there is.  I mean--I don't know if anything I have to say is going to be shocking to that many people.

ME:  But you didn't want to go public?

THEM:  Okay, so--no matter how transparent these places try to be or want to be, I think--I think if I were to go public, my career in the non-profit field would be over, and I don't know if I'm willing to commit to--to having it be over just yet.

ME:  How long did you work at the organization you worked for?

THEM:  Let's say longer than ten years but less than twenty.

ME:  Okay.  What made you leave?

THEM:  It was--I'm going to be judicious with these details.

ME:  Okay.

THEM:  We had just received a large donation from--a very wealthy person.  Someone everyone from, uh, where I'm from would know.  And, uh, it was in the millions of dollars.

ME:  More than five but less than ten?

THEM:  More than--Yes.  (Laughs.)  A lot.  And--the money was--we were asked to act as a sort of--arbiter.  We were tasked with, uh, figuring out a good way to distribute the funds.  It was made clear to us by the donor that they would like to see the money go to a young company or several young companies, because this donor was very interested in helping up-and-coming artists.

ME:  And is that what happened?

THEM:  Well.  So...I was told--it was a job that was given to me--to, uh, convince the donor that what they wanted to do with the money was not...that it wasn't a good idea.  That the companies in our area--the smaller companies--weren't ready for that kind of investment, and that the money would be better suited--or, it would be put to better use--going to one of the larger theaters in our area.

ME:  Wow.

THEM:  Yes.

ME:  What was your response to being told to do that?

THEM:  I...I have relationships with a lot of these young companies.  I thought--I thought that painting them as fiscally irresponsible was unfair.  That it was inaccurate.  Right away I was told, 'That's not what we're telling you to do.  We're telling you to say it would be better off with this larger company.'  But in order to do that, we had to make the donor think that their original--that what they wanted to do with the money was a bad idea, and--I felt like the only way to do that would be to make them think that donating to a smaller company or several smaller companies was a financial risk.  When really--at that time--I felt strongly that donating to the larger company was a much bigger risk.

ME:  Why were they so keen on giving money to the bigger company?

THEM:  That's part of the culture that's developed in that organization--and I think in a lot of similar organizations--where there's...There's a feeling that we need to, um--

ME:  To back the right horse?

THEM:  (Laughs.)  In way, yes.  Uh, I think there is some good sound justification for that.  If you're in the business of providing monetary support, you want to be seen as having good sound judgment when it comes to investing in artists and artistic organizations.  The problem is--that can translate into playing favorites.  That's what I felt was--And there was also this, uh, incentive to see long-standing organizations succeed.

ME:  Ones with longevity?

THEM:  Yes.

ME:  And you didn't feel right about that?

THEM:  I think this came up in another interview you did, but, um, my feeling is similar to one that I know many people in this industry have right now, which is--if these places are that big, then they should be able to support themselves.  They should not turn into--and many of them have--turned into a drain on the support system in a given community.

ME:  Too big to fail.

THEM:  Yes.  I agree with that way of thinking.  The money that my organization was put in charge of would have dramatically altered the landscape of our community.  That's because of what it would have meant to a lot of these organizations that are struggling.  That could use that kind of financial backing.  It's not that it would have been put to poor use being given to the largest establishment, but I think you have to wonder what it means if you're a theater in 2019 that requires millions of dollars every year to stay open.

ME:  Do you think it's irresponsible for a theater to require that much money to operate?

THEM:  I think--Well, okay--Here's where somebody calls me a socialist in the comments section.

ME:  I keep meaning to disable that section, but I don't know how.

THEM:  I think that--if a theater can't generate enough revenue on its own to stay open, then--I think needing some outside help is fine, but theaters are very quick to talk about how they can't exist on just ticket sales.  Well, I can't imagine any other business saying 'We can't exist just on what you're buying so can you just give us some extra money?'

ME:  But isn't there a feeling that a theater isn't a business?  They're pretty much all non-profit.

THEM:  But why do you need--and not you, but--

ME:  Right, all I need is a block of cheese and a dream.

THEM:  (Laughs.)  Okay, so, why do these places need millions of dollars in operating funds, and then you look at what the top two or the top five people in the company are making and it's six figures--and a lot of the time, it's because that person is good at fundraising, which, to me, is like a dog chasing its own tail.

ME:  And so do you think--

THEM:  I think funding sources--donors, donor groups, corporate donors--should be thinking about the next generation of artists and not feel like it's their job to prop up an institution simply because it's an institution.  I've been in meetings where I've heard people from these big colossal theaters and galleries say things like 'Oh, we need x amount to survive this year' and the x stands for millions of dollars, and you just want to raise your hand and say, 'What if we hit another recession?  Shouldn't you be finding ways to operate at a lower cost?'

ME:  Maybe they can't?

THEM:  Well, let's start with saying that--and this might be unpopular to artists, but I'm just going to say it--Maybe we should be saying that someone running a theater should not be making six figures.

ME:  Movie stars make millions of dollars.  Sports--

THEM:  Movie stars and athletes bring in millions of dollars.  People might go see a movie because Melissa McCarthy is in it.  Nobody is going to a theater because of who's running it.  Most audience members can't even name the top administrative staff at a theater.  But listen, if you don't want to cut costs at the payroll level, what about trimming the fat somewhere else?

ME:  Like where?

THEM:  I look at these budgets sometimes, and where the money is going--in the bigger places--is shocking to me.

ME:  Like where?

THEM:  Uh...

(Pause.)

ME:  You don't want to answer that?

THEM:  It's going towards propping up the image the place wants to convey, and not always towards making the work better or enriching the lives of the employees.  And that's all I'll say.

ME:  And housing outside artists when they could be using local people?

THEM:  That.  Yes.  I was always getting in trouble for yelling about that.  Saying we shouldn't be giving money to groups so they can turn around and hire somebody from New York to come in and do the set or something.  It was very frustrating.

ME:  How did you lose those arguments?

THEM:  Because the organization wanted the theater to have--or theaters--to have that perception as well.  They wanted them to look successful because we were supporting them and it would make us look good.

ME:  Was there any effort made to try and...sort of starve smaller organizations to death?

(Pause.)

THEM:  I want to talk to you off the record for a second.

ME:  All right.

(Recording Paused.  A few minutes later.)

ME:  Okay, we're back.  I'm going to ask you the question again, but I'm going to phrase it a little differently.

THEM:  Okay.

ME:  Do you think that in general organizations like the one you worked for sometimes wish for the demise of smaller organizations?

THEM:  (Laughs.)  That's worse than what you asked the first time.

ME:  I know.  Can you answer the question?

(Pause.)

THEM:  Yes.

ME:  Thank you for being honest.

THEM:  I think--hmm.  I think that--just like anything else--if there are five groups, and you really want to see the first group do well, and you only have enough resources at your disposal to help one of them--there is this feeling that...That maybe it would be better if those other groups just...weren't there--always needing your help.  Asking about it.  Causing trouble.  Stirring the pot.  I think...I think that's how people felt where I worked sometimes.

ME:  Were they upset if smaller groups succeeded in spite of them?

THEM:  I don't know about that.  I'm sure some people were, because--Just like any other organization, we had people in ours who...liked having influence--in the broader community.  And if you're succeeding without us, then I guess we don't have much influence where you're concerned.  And some people wouldn't like that, obviously, but I think--I think for some people it was--Oh good, so they're not bothering us.  They're doing okay on their own.  Great.

ME:  Do you feel that organizations like the one you worked for should be acting in the way they are--in terms of exerting influence?

THEM:  I felt that we needed to be a champion for groups to the outside world.  I did not think we should be, uh, getting in the muck in terms of dealing with interpersonal politics between artists and other artists or groups and other groups, and that did happen quite often.

ME:  What was the response like when you told the people you worked for that you were leaving?

THEM:  Oh, it's a lot of 'We agree, we agree, we agree, but we can't fix it.  It's just the way it is.  It's how it has to be.'

ME:  Do you believe that?

THEM:  No.  It's stupid.

ME:  What other examples do you have of poor behavior on the part of your organization?

THEM:  I don't know if I would call it poor behavior, but we did a lot of--there was a lot of propping up paper heroes.

ME:  What does that mean?

THEM:  I call--we called them, a few of us--paper heroes.  People who look really good on paper, but aren't actually any good at what they do.

ME:  Can you give me an example?

THEM:  There was this woman, and--she was a good talker.  She was like a used car salesman.  And she used to say that she was a poet.  Okay.  Well, she was also from India.  Or her background--She had never been to India, but her heritage was Indian.  And she was very vocal about that.  And she asked us for money to write a book of poetry.  She wanted money for that.  We gave her money.  We gave her a lot of money.  I remember that at the time, India was really big.  And she kept saying she was going to write this book of poems about her heritage.  And she wrote a poem here or there, but that was it.  And we just kept giving her money so that she would come to these ceremonies of ours and pose for pictures and make us look progressive.  You go through periods in arts funding where certain things are really trendy and everyone's rushing to support the trend.  First it was India, then it was Central American stories, then Native American stories, at one point, obviously, stories from the LGBTQ community were given a lot of attention--and these are all worthy perspectives that should be given support, but the problem is, sometimes there isn't a lot of discerning going on in terms of the work coming from an artist who identifies with one of those communities.  If they check the box, and it's a box we're interested in in that moment, we give them money.  And the danger there is, when that box isn't trendy anymore, the money goes away.  So there's no real commitment.  It's happening now with the indigenous community where I'm from.  We were tripping over ourselves to give money to support any work coming out of that community, and meanwhile, there was no real review of any of the work to determine if it was worth the money we were giving it, and meanwhile, other people were going without.  I found it--it was really despicable to me, because there really wasn't any good intent behind it even when the results were good.

ME:  What can we do about all this?

THEM:  It sounds scary, but...we need oversight.  We need more oversight.  We need the people I was talking about who make a lot of noise to keep making noise.  To keep bothering the people at the top of these organizations.  And really, I think we just need to learn to live without them altogether, because the way they're being run now--like the bigger places they support--it's just not sustainable.  Eventually it'll crack.  And when it does, if you're relying on them, you're going to be in big trouble.  That's part of why it was so easy for me to leave.  I just didn't see a future there.  That happens at a lot of places, but if I felt we were doing important work and championing the right people, I would have stuck it out to the end, but that wasn't what was happening.  It was very elitist.

ME:  Would you consider places like that to be a gatekeeper situation like what we've been talking about in other interviews?

THEM:  Yes.  Very much so.  And whereas I think some people become gatekeepers even if they don't want to be, I think the people who run the organizations like the one I was at are jockeying for that position.  They want to be seen as the ones holding the red rope.  I think it's--it's become a very attractive and magnetic place to be if you're someone who's interested in the creative arts, but feels like you should be able to say what art should and shouldn't be made.

ME:  Thank you for talking with me.

THEM:  Thank you, Kevin.

Them recently left a long-standing position and is currently looking for work in a different field.