Latest news with #SouthCoastRepertory
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Contributor: Art for art's sake, or the president's?
This month, in a move equally shocking and predictable, the National Endowment for the Arts terminated or rescinded hundreds of previously awarded grants to arts organizations nationwide. Among the California institutions affected are the South Coast Repertory theater company, Los Angeles Theatre Works, the community-based Cornerstone Theater Company and Transit Books, a Bay Area publisher specializing in international literature with authors including Norwegian novelist and playwright Jon Fosse, who received the 2023 Nobel Prize in literature. 'The NEA,' the endowment asserted in a mass emails sent to these grantees, 'is updating its grantmaking policy priorities to focus funding on projects that reflect the nation's rich artistic heritage and creativity as prioritized by the President. Consequently, we are terminating awards that fall outside these new priorities.' Read more: UCLA, LACO, South Coast Rep: How Trump's NEA cuts are hitting home Such a criterion is absurd, not least because the recipients in question are part of our 'rich artistic heritage.' Many serve as incubators, creating spaces for artists and art making that might otherwise be overlooked. In that regard, they are the most necessary components of our aesthetic infrastructure. The NEA, of course, has long been a target of this president. During his first term, he repeatedly tried to cut the endowment's budget but was restrained by Congress. This time, things are different, with the administration hollowing out many of the mechanisms of government, including federal grants and aid across the board. It was only a matter of time, then, before the focus returned to the arts. I understand why some might consider art dangerous. What is it worth if it hasn't any teeth? And yet, in all sorts of ways, the arts necessarily represent a nation's collective soul. The mediums, the artists and what is created remind us of our diversity, and also reflect our commonality, in all its glorious contradiction and complication. The arts make us question ourselves and feel for one another. They encourage us to think. Read more: Los Angeles and the literature of the apocalypse I also understand there's a case to be made that artists should not be in the business of taking money from the government. Isn't accepting federal support a form of complicity? Over the years, I've gone back and forth on this, but now I'm off that fence. Why shouldn't artists be rewarded? Why wouldn't they deserve taxpayer support? For their own sake, yes, but also because it's good for everyone. Every grant, after all, carries a host of ancillary benefits — not only to recipients but also to the businesses and services in their communities. The NEA represents the proverbial rising tide that lifts many boats. In any event, the grant terminations have nothing to do with questions of purity. They are politically motivated, targeting projects and institutions deemed insufficiently American. The stance is partisan even as it implies art should not be ideological. As George Orwell observed in his 1946 essay 'Why I Write': 'The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude.' I was a juror on the NEA's 2012 literature publishing panel. Many of the grants we awarded — to literary organizations, journals and independent publishers — are similar to those that have been reversed. I recognized then, and continue to believe, that such support is crucial, not only because it is necessary for the financial stability of the recipients but also because it allows us, as a culture, to uncouple art from commerce in fundamental ways. Read more: Appreciation: In a world full of lies, Milan Kundera taught us how to be free 'It is difficult,' William Carlos Williams wrote in 1955, 'to get the news from poems / Yet men die miserably every day / for lack / of what is found there.' What he's saying is that to reduce art to a mere commodity, measured by price or practical utility, is to overlook its true worth. This is what makes the NEA and its grant making so important. Without it, many arts organizations have been, and will continue to be, driven out of business or forced to restrict the scope of their work. In a May 6 email to subscribers and supporters, Oscar Villalon, editor of the San Francisco literary journal Zyzzyva (full disclosure: I am a contributing editor) responded to the publication's rescinded grant in the starkest possible terms: 'The current mood is one of dreadful anticipation of further hostility toward arts and culture, in general, and toward any institution or organization — nonprofit or otherwise — whose values do not align with the goals of this presidency.' That this is the point of the exercise should go without saying. At the same time, there is more at stake. The issue is not simply the survival of any one institution but the need to preserve the legacy and lineage of the humanist tradition, which begins with making room for many voices and constituencies. The most essential art challenges not just our preconceptions but also our perceptions. That's what makes it necessary. The arts speak for all of us, which means we cannot help but be diminished when they are. David L. Ulin is a contributing writer to Opinion Voices. If it's in the news right now, the L.A. Times' Opinion section covers it. Sign up for our weekly opinion newsletter. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Los Angeles Times
27-05-2025
- Politics
- Los Angeles Times
Art for art's sake, or the president's?
This month, in a move equally shocking and predictable, the National Endowment for the Arts terminated or rescinded hundreds of previously awarded grants to arts organizations nationwide. Among the California institutions affected are the South Coast Repertory theater company, Los Angeles Theatre Works, the community-based Cornerstone Theater Company and Transit Books, a Bay Area publisher specializing in international literature with authors including Norwegian novelist and playwright Jon Fosse, who received the 2023 Nobel Prize in literature. 'The NEA,' the endowment asserted in a mass emails sent to these grantees, 'is updating its grantmaking policy priorities to focus funding on projects that reflect the nation's rich artistic heritage and creativity as prioritized by the President. Consequently, we are terminating awards that fall outside these new priorities.' Such a criterion is absurd, not least because the recipients in question are part of our 'rich artistic heritage.' Many serve as incubators, creating spaces for artists and art making that might otherwise be overlooked. In that regard, they are the most necessary components of our aesthetic infrastructure. The NEA, of course, has long been a target of this president. During his first term, he repeatedly tried to cut the endowment's budget but was restrained by Congress. This time, things are different, with the administration hollowing out many of the mechanisms of government, including federal grants and aid across the board. It was only a matter of time, then, before the focus returned to the arts. I understand why some might consider art dangerous. What is it worth if it hasn't any teeth? And yet, in all sorts of ways, the arts necessarily represent a nation's collective soul. The mediums, the artists and what is created remind us of our diversity, and also reflect our commonality, in all its glorious contradiction and complication. The arts make us question ourselves and feel for one another. They encourage us to think. I also understand there's a case to be made that artists should not be in the business of taking money from the government. Isn't accepting federal support a form of complicity? Over the years, I've gone back and forth on this, but now I'm off that fence. Why shouldn't artists be rewarded? Why wouldn't they deserve taxpayer support? For their own sake, yes, but also because it's good for everyone. Every grant, after all, carries a host of ancillary benefits — not only to recipients but also to the businesses and services in their communities. The NEA represents the proverbial rising tide that lifts many boats. In any event, the grant terminations have nothing to do with questions of purity. They are politically motivated, targeting projects and institutions deemed insufficiently American. The stance is partisan even as it implies art should not be ideological. As George Orwell observed in his 1946 essay 'Why I Write': 'The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude.' I was a juror on the NEA's 2012 literature publishing panel. Many of the grants we awarded — to literary organizations, journals and independent publishers — are similar to those that have been reversed. I recognized then, and continue to believe, that such support is crucial, not only because it is necessary for the financial stability of the recipients but also because it allows us, as a culture, to uncouple art from commerce in fundamental ways. 'It is difficult,' William Carlos Williams wrote in 1955, 'to get the news from poems / Yet men die miserably every day / for lack / of what is found there.' What he's saying is that to reduce art to a mere commodity, measured by price or practical utility, is to overlook its true worth. This is what makes the NEA and its grant making so important. Without it, many arts organizations have been, and will continue to be, driven out of business or forced to restrict the scope of their work. In a May 6 email to subscribers and supporters, Oscar Villalon, editor of the San Francisco literary journal Zyzzyva (full disclosure: I am a contributing editor) responded to the publication's rescinded grant in the starkest possible terms: 'The current mood is one of dreadful anticipation of further hostility toward arts and culture, in general, and toward any institution or organization — nonprofit or otherwise — whose values do not align with the goals of this presidency.' That this is the point of the exercise should go without saying. At the same time, there is more at stake. The issue is not simply the survival of any one institution but the need to preserve the legacy and lineage of the humanist tradition, which begins with making room for many voices and constituencies. The most essential art challenges not just our preconceptions but also our perceptions. That's what makes it necessary. The arts speak for all of us, which means we cannot help but be diminished when they are. David L. Ulin is a contributing writer to Opinion Voices.
Yahoo
06-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
UCLA, LACO, South Coast Rep: How Trump's NEA cuts are hitting home
South Coast Repertory was celebrating the opening night of a play it had commissioned and spent years developing when it received the notification: The $20,000 National Endowment for the Arts grant that funded the project had been canceled. The Tony Award-winning theater in Costa Mesa was not alone. By Monday, nonprofits in and around L.A. — including the Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, L.A. Theatre Works and the Industry — were scrambling to plug funding gaps as large as $50,000, money that in some cases had already been spent. "The NEA is updating its grantmaking policy priorities to focus funding on projects that reflect the nation's rich artistic heritage and creativity as prioritized by the President. Consequently, we are terminating awards that fall outside these new priorities," the Friday night emails to arts groups said, adding that their project "does not align with these priorities." The grant cancellations marked the latest salvo in Trump's battle to claim the landscape of American arts and culture, including his takeover of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.; his elimination of federal funding for what he called "divisive" exhibits about racism and sexism in America at the Smithsonian; his drastic cuts to the National Endowment for Humanities and the Institute of Museum and Library Services; and his broader efforts to eliminate the NEA altogether. "It's really gonna leave us in the red, I think," said Edgar Miramontes, executive and artistic director of CAP UCLA, which spent its $40,000 grant in January on a program featuring Congolese dancer and choreographer Faustin Linyekula, who used movement to honor maternal ancestors and to tell the story of women in his clan. CAP UCLA's grant had been recommended for fulfillment by the NEA but was not yet finalized. That was not a concern, Miramontes said. Precedent suggested that the money would come through based on the recommendation. But then the cancellation came. CAP UCLA has long benefited from its connection to UCLA, but universities are also facing the threat of federal funding cuts under the Trump administration. This leaves the organization to turn to individual donors, many of whom are reluctant to give when the stock market is so volatile and the economic outlook is so clouded by Trump tariffs. The funding shocks add to the challenges arts organizations are still grappling with in their post-COVID-19 recovery. "This feels like another layer," Miramontes said, adding that audiences were just beginning to come back and reengage with live performance. "Now having to deal with this potential ongoing loss is really difficult to think about." Created by an act of Congress in 1965, the NEA has been a diminishing but still important source of funding for six decades across a range of cultural disciplines targeting all kinds of audiences — young and old, low and high. In the last five years, it has given nearly $82 million to arts organizations in California. "We would never have imagined that there would be a world where arts education and telling the American story through music would not be a priority for this kind of august granting body that's funded by our tax dollars," said LACO Executive Director Ben Cadwallader, who lost a $25,000 grant for a residency with pianist Lara Downes. "How we tell our stories is how we define ourselves. That's our identity, and without the backing of the federal government in that effort, it's just profoundly demoralizing." LACO's grant had already been funded and spent. The program in question had been completed after Downes conducted residencies and concerts at the Watts Learning Center school campus as well as with USC's Neighborhood Academic Initiative. "If it weren't so sad, it would be a little bit comical to receive this termination notice after everything has already been accomplished," said Cadwallader, who speculated that LACO got the notice because the grant was marked "active" in the NEA portal. According to an email sent to its grantees by the California Arts Council, which acts at the state's arts agency and receives funding from the NEA, the grant rescissions appear to be widespread but "not uniformly applied across all grantees." Los Angeles Master Chorale, for example, received its full $50,000 grant for its "Lift Every Voice" program and got no letter, said President and Chief Executive Scott Altman. "As I'm connecting with sister organizations and hearing from colleagues across the country, we seem to be a bit of an anomaly," Altman said. "I think it's just head-spinning to try to interpret things that are so erratic. That's the struggle that organizations are encountering right now — how to possibly read into what is being sought under new guidelines." Read more: Their homes and school burned in the Eaton fire. But these theater kids rise from the ashes The lack of clarity about how these funding decisions are being made — and whether the NEA will exist in the future — is making it hard for groups to plan programming. At L.A. Theatre Works, which bills itself as the country's leading producer of audio theater, Managing Director Vicki Pearlson said the nonprofit has reliably received grants from the NEA for decades. This year's grant, the first ever to get pulled back, was for $50,000. "It's never a guarantee that you're going to get an award, but with a long history in your budget planning, you project that it will be there," Pearlson said. "It's difficult when there are such stalwarts in arts funding, such as the NEA, that now simply are up in the air." CAP UCLA and South Coast Repertory plan to appeal the rescission of grant money that has already been spent. The NEA letters state that groups have seven days to appeal. "Promised matching funds from the National Endowment for the Arts allowed our organization to secure the resources necessary to produce this work," SCR wrote in a statement about "The Staircase" by Noa Gardner. "The vast majority of artists, artisans and technicians working on our production are local to Orange County and Southern California, creating hundreds of jobs for our local workforce." The impact of NEA cuts on communities and individual artists could be huge, said Carissa Gutierrez, director of public affairs for the California Arts Council. "We already know that artists face increased economic instability with fewer grants and project opportunities, so we know that any potential cuts to organizations throughout the state could, in fact, impact artists directly and communities as well," Gutierrez said, adding that the council is tracking organizations that lost funding along with the size of their budgets to understand how those losses might be offset. "We are working around the clock," Gutierrez said. Artists are doing the same. "When times are like this, when there is so much chaos, my job feels very important," said LACO's creative partner Lara Downes. "When we're making music, and we're creating that space for people to be together to focus on beauty and truth. It just feels extremely urgent and extremely big." Get notified when the biggest stories in Hollywood, culture and entertainment go live. Sign up for L.A. Times entertainment alerts. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Los Angeles Times
06-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
UCLA, LACO, South Coast Rep: How Trump's NEA cuts are hitting home
South Coast Repertory was celebrating the opening night of a play it had commissioned and spent years developing when it received the notification: The $20,000 National Endowment for the Arts grant that funded the project had been canceled. The Tony Award-winning theater in Costa Mesa was not alone. By Monday, nonprofits in and around L.A. — including the Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, L.A. Theatre Works and the Industry — were scrambling to plug funding gaps as large as $50,000, money that in some cases had already been spent. 'The NEA is updating its grantmaking policy priorities to focus funding on projects that reflect the nation's rich artistic heritage and creativity as prioritized by the President. Consequently, we are terminating awards that fall outside these new priorities,' the Friday night emails to arts groups said, adding that their project 'does not align with these priorities.' The grant cancellations marked the latest salvo in Trump's battle to claim the landscape of American arts and culture, including his takeover of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.; his elimination of federal funding for what he called 'divisive' exhibits about racism and sexism in America at the Smithsonian; his drastic cuts to the National Endowment for Humanities and the Institute of Museum and Library Services; and his broader efforts to eliminate the NEA altogether. 'It's really gonna leave us in the red, I think,' said Edgar Miramontes, executive and artistic director of CAP UCLA, which spent its $40,000 grant in January on a program featuring Congolese dancer and choreographer Faustin Linyekula, who used movement to honor maternal ancestors and to tell the story of women in his clan. CAP UCLA's grant had been recommended for fulfillment by the NEA but was not yet finalized. That was not a concern, Miramontes said. Precedent suggested that the money would come through based on the recommendation. But then the cancellation came. CAP UCLA has long benefited from its connection to UCLA, but universities are also facing the threat of federal funding cuts under the Trump administration. This leaves the organization to turn to individual donors, many of whom are reluctant to give when the stock market is so volatile and the economic outlook is so clouded by Trump tariffs. The funding shocks add to the challenges arts organizations are still grappling with in their post-COVID-19 recovery. 'This feels like another layer,' Miramontes said, adding that audiences were just beginning to come back and reengage with live performance. 'Now having to deal with this potential ongoing loss is really difficult to think about.' Created by an act of Congress in 1965, the NEA has been a diminishing but still important source of funding for six decades across a range of cultural disciplines targeting all kinds of audiences — young and old, low and high. In the last five years, it has given nearly $82 million to arts organizations in California. 'We would never have imagined that there would be a world where arts education and telling the American story through music would not be a priority for this kind of august granting body that's funded by our tax dollars,' said LACO Executive Director Ben Cadwallader, who lost a $25,000 grant for a residency with pianist Lara Downes. 'How we tell our stories is how we define ourselves. That's our identity, and without the backing of the federal government in that effort, it's just profoundly demoralizing.' LACO's grant had already been funded and spent. The program in question had been completed after Downes conducted residencies and concerts at the Watts Learning Center school campus as well as with USC's Neighborhood Academic Initiative. Classical musician Lara Downes. 'If it weren't so sad, it would be a little bit comical to receive this termination notice after everything has already been accomplished,' said Cadwallader, who speculated that LACO got the notice because the grant was marked 'active' in the NEA portal. According to an email sent to its grantees by the California Arts Council, which acts at the state's arts agency and receives funding from the NEA, the grant rescissions appear to be widespread but 'not uniformly applied across all grantees.' Los Angeles Master Chorale, for example, received its full $50,000 grant for its 'Lift Every Voice' program and got no letter, said President and Chief Executive Scott Altman. 'As I'm connecting with sister organizations and hearing from colleagues across the country, we seem to be a bit of an anomaly,' Altman said. 'I think it's just head-spinning to try to interpret things that are so erratic. That's the struggle that organizations are encountering right now — how to possibly read into what is being sought under new guidelines.' The lack of clarity about how these funding decisions are being made — and whether the NEA will exist in the future — is making it hard for groups to plan programming. At L.A. Theatre Works, which bills itself as the country's leading producer of audio theater, Managing Director Vicki Pearlson said the nonprofit has reliably received grants from the NEA for decades. This year's grant, the first ever to get pulled back, was for $50,000. 'It's never a guarantee that you're going to get an award, but with a long history in your budget planning, you project that it will be there,' Pearlson said. 'It's difficult when there are such stalwarts in arts funding, such as the NEA, that now simply are up in the air.' CAP UCLA and South Coast Repertory plan to appeal the rescission of grant money that has already been spent. The NEA letters state that groups have seven days to appeal. 'Promised matching funds from the National Endowment for the Arts allowed our organization to secure the resources necessary to produce this work,' SCR wrote in a statement about 'The Staircase' by Noa Gardner. 'The vast majority of artists, artisans and technicians working on our production are local to Orange County and Southern California, creating hundreds of jobs for our local workforce.' The impact of NEA cuts on communities and individual artists could be huge, said Carissa Gutierrez, director of public affairs for the California Arts Council. 'We already know that artists face increased economic instability with fewer grants and project opportunities, so we know that any potential cuts to organizations throughout the state could, in fact, impact artists directly and communities as well,' Gutierrez said, adding that the council is tracking organizations that lost funding along with the size of their budgets to understand how those losses might be offset. 'We are working around the clock,' Gutierrez said. Artists are doing the same. 'When times are like this, when there is so much chaos, my job feels very important,' said LACO's creative partner Lara Downes. 'When we're making music, and we're creating that space for people to be together to focus on beauty and truth. It just feels extremely urgent and extremely big.'
Los Angeles Times
06-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
South Coast Repertory loses $20k grant after NEA changes priorities
Richard Soto and Richard Doyle in South Coast Repertory's 2022 production of 'A Christmas Carol,' by Charles Dickens, adapted by Jerry Patch. South Coast Repertory announced Tuesday it lost a $20,000 federal grant for a play on the day the theater company was celebrating its opening night due to a change in the National Endowment for the Arts' grant-making priorities. The Costa Mesa-based theater company was notified Friday that its National Endowment for the Arts grant for 'The Staircase' by Noa Gardner was being withdrawn. The grant did not finance the entire production, South Coast Repertory Managing Director Suzanne Appel told City News Service. But the grant 'supports quite a lot of the work of the skilled technicians,' who work on the production, she said. The $20,000 'is not anywhere close to the full cost of the project or even a tenth of the full cost, but it is a meaningful amount of money,' Appel said. The company was told Nov. 7 it would receive the grant. 'We were told we did everything we needed to do and the grant was in process, and then we received this notification with no warning,' Appel said. South Coast Repertory has been given a chance to appeal the denial in a week, Appel said, adding the theater company intends to appeal the denial. In the notice of withdrawal of the grant, the theater company was told that the arts agency was 'updating its grant-making priorities to focus funding on projects that reflect the nation's rich artistic heritage and creativity as prioritized by the president. Consequently, we are terminating awards that fall outside these new priorities. 'The NEA will now prioritize projects that elevate the nation's (historically Black colleges and universities) and Hispanic Serving Institutions, celebrate the 250th anniversary of American independence, foster AI competency, empower houses of worship to service communities, assist with disaster recovery, foster skilled trade jobs, make America healthy again, support the military and veterans, support Tribal communities, make the District of Columbia safe and beautiful, and support the economic development of Asian American communities. Funding is being allocated in a new direction in furtherance of the administration's agenda.' Gardner's story focuses on a native Hawaiian family and was commissioned, developed and staged by South Coast Repertory. South Coast Repertory officials say it celebrates native Hawaiian culture and is a 'universal story of familial love and obligations...'
