A History of the National Endowment for the Arts: Impact on Theater

 

A Supplement to the Regional Theater Series

[This installment of “A History of the National Endowment for the Arts,” the last section of Bauerlein and Grantham’s “National Endowment for the Arts: A History, 1965-2008” I’ll be posting, is from Part II of the NEA report, “The Impact of the NEA.”  It’s divided into six topics—"Dance,” “Literature,” “Media Arts,” “Museums and Visual Arts,” “Music and Opera,” and “Theater”—but I’ll only be posting the theater segment. 

[This section serves as a summary of the work of the Arts Endowment in theater and its effect on the field.  If you’ve just joined this thread, I suggest that after reading “Impact on Theater,” you go back and read the rest of the serialized report, starting with the Introduction and Chapter 1, posted on 5 November. Then continue with Chapters 2 through 10/Epilogue, posted on 8, 11, 14, 17. 20, and 30 November, and 3 and 13 December.]

“NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS: A HISTORY, 1965-2008”
edited by Mark Bauerlein with Ellen Grantham
(National Endowment for the Arts, 2009) 

p a r t  II 

The IMPACT of the NEA

Theater

bill o’brien
Theater Director

Introduction

In a speech to regional theater directors, whom she had assembled in 1935, Hallie Flanagan, theater producer, director, and playwright, insisted that theater in America “. . . must experiment with ideas, with the psychological relationship of men and women, with speech and rhythm forms, with dance and movement, with color and light or it must and should become a museum product.” The group was assembled to help launch Franklin Roosevelt’s Federal Theatre Project (FTP)—a division of the Works Progress Administration [WPA]. Flanagan recognized that the commercial concerns that had governed the field since the nation was established did not always support this type of exploration. To ensure artistic advances, and widespread access to them by the general public, federal support would be necessary. 

[Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945; 32nd President of the United States: 1933-45) took office in the midst of the Great Depression (1929-39). The WPA (1935-43) and its constituent programs like the FTP, among others, was intended to put Americans unemployed by the economic crisis, including artists of all disciplines, back to work. They were paid to do jobs in their professional fields for the public good.]

There had been no single national theater in the United States, such as those in Russia, England, France, and many other developed nations of the world. Apart from the brief, but influential tenure of the FTP (from 1935-39), the evolution of American theater progressed without the benefit of coordinated federal planning or consistent investment. Despite this lack of centralized support, talented artists and leaders began to emerge in the early and mid-twentieth century who were intent on creating a proud American theatrical tradition that would appropriately reflect the nation’s new position in the world. By the time they were through, a fledgling decentralized national theater movement had emerged, one that rivaled the ongoing dramatic achievements of any nation in the world.

Nonetheless, American theater still struggles with rising costs, audience loyalty, and rival entertainments. [See “A Crisis In America’s Theaters,” posted on Rick On Theater on 13 September 2023, and “The Regional Theater: Change or Die,” 3 October 2023.] Theater in America has been marked by a long struggle between art and commerce, and its evolution from popular entertainment forms such as vaudeville and melodrama have, at times, hampered its ability to be perceived as a serious art form. Still, in the twentieth century playwrights have marked one of our country’s most distinguished artistic traditions. Eugene O’Neill, Arthur Miller, and Tennessee Williams, among others, have created classics destined to endure as part of our national legacy.

These playwrights’ success lies partly in the fact that by the midpoint of the century amateur and educational theater was flourishing in many locations in the United States. Professional theater centered in New York and Broadway, the undisputed capital of the industry. But elsewhere, an active and talented set of artists and leaders explored new ways to produce theater. Their results were inspirational and helped to set a course for a more expansive national theater movement than had ever been seen before. One of them was Margo Jones from Dallas, Texas, who established the first nonprofit professional theater company in America in 1947, entitled Theatre ’47 (the name changed each year). Jones based her institution on a vision of a “golden age of American theatre.” In her influential 1951 book, Theatre-in-the-Round, she described her dream of a future in which theater plays a part in everybody’s life, and in which “civilization is constantly being enriched.” [Theatre ’47 lasted until Jones’s death in 1955.] Other leaders emerged in communities spread out across the country to join in the effort:

• Nina Vance and the Alley Theatre in Houston [founded in 1947]

• Zelda Fichandler and the Arena Stage in Washington, DC [founded in 1950]

• Gordon Davidson and the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles [opened in 1967]

• Jon Jory and Harlan Kleiman and the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut [founded in 1965]

• Richard Block and the Actors Theatre of Louisville in Kentucky [founded in 1964]

• William Ball and the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco [founded 1965]

• Joseph Papp and the New York Shakespeare Festival in New York [conceived in 1954; now the Public Theater]

These and other pioneering thespians sought to plant the theater in the midst of American life, to make it as essential to ordinary citizens as any other entertainment they might enjoy. And they tried to base it in communities and to define it as much by artistic innovation as by market constraints. [See “Regional Theater: History,” 8 October 2023.]

In the 1950s, the Ford Foundation’s W. McNeil Lowry [director of arts and humanities programs (1957-64); vice president (1964-74)] conceived a new strategy to support the nascent nonprofit theater. The foundation began to award arts grants, national in distribution, as leveraged investments in the development of resident theaters across the country. Support was provided to, among others, an ambitious new theater in Minneapolis. The Guthrie Theater [founded in 1963], established by Sir Tyrone Guthrie, Peter Zeisler, and a group of energetic artists, opened its doors in a sparkling facility as a repertory ensemble company. Elsewhere, notably in Stratford, Connecticut, and Ashland, Oregon, new theater festivals were created [American Shakespeare Theatre (1955-89) and Oregon Shakespeare Festival (founded 1935), respectively]. Concurrently, in New York City, brilliant young playwrights gathered at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club [founded 1961] and other little-known spaces to produce exciting pieces “off-off-Broadway.” [See “Greenwich Village Theater in the 1960s,” 12 and 15 December 2011; also “Caffe Cino,” 11 and 14 September 2018.]

In the 1960s, the landscape of theater began to change as a confluence of societal forces—including improved public education, relative prosperity, increased leisure time, and advances by women and minorities in public life—sparked more consumer interest in the arts. These same influences helped bring the National Endowment for the Arts into being.

The NEA Enters The Scene

By 1965, the year the Arts Endowment was established, theater in America had become a vibrant and vital cultural tradition, though mainly in New York City and the handful of other communities fortunate enough to have a professional regional theater company. The movement was primed for growth and the potential of the Endowment’s influence was felt almost immediately in the theater world.

The first National Council on the Arts contained several noteworthy figures from the field, such as Helen Hayes, Charlton Heston, Gregory Peck, Sidney Poitier, and Richard Rodgers. In May of 1966, the council declared that one of its primary goals was to support “the development of a larger and more appreciative audience for the theatre.” Among its first actions was a decision to undertake studies of several pilot projects in the field of repertory theater. The council understood that many of the best theater companies already benefited from grants from a number of foundations, including the Ford Foundation, which continued to back regional theaters in the 1960s. While the council felt that their ability to win support elsewhere should not exclude these organizations from receiving federal awards, it also reasoned that it would be imperative to broaden Arts Endowment support in a way that would appropriately reflect the national reach and responsibility of the new agency. Hence, the council also set about encouraging “grants to professional groups to be formed with strong local and regional support,” and “grants, research, and liaison work with the idea of sending the best repertory companies on tour to play in university theaters.”

Another early action by the National Council on the Arts generated an experimental program entitled the Laboratory Theatre Project. Formed in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Education and state and local school boards, the program aimed to provide American cities with professional theater companies that would present outstanding performances at no charge to secondary school children during weekday afternoons and to adult audiences during weekend performances.

In 1966, the first two Laboratory Theatre Project grants were awarded to Trinity Square Repertory Company in [Providence,] Rhode Island and Repertory Theatre of New Orleans. Under the direction of Adrian Hall and John McQuiggan, Trinity Square used the award to produce Anton Chekhov’s Three Sisters, Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, George Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan, and Eugene O’Neill’s Ah, Wilderness! The Repertory Theatre of New Orleans, under the direction of Stuart Vaughn, received funds to present Brandon Thomas’s Charley’s Aunt, Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, and Richard Sheridan’s The Rivals. Theater critics responded quickly to the productions. William Glover of Associated Press wrote, “The biggest theatrical angel this season isn’t on Broadway—but in Washington. He is Uncle Sam, backing a multipurpose test of drama in education. . . . Taking part, in a rare display of agency togetherness, are the National Endowment for the Arts, the United States Office of Education [1867-1972; succeeded by the United States Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services] and state and local boards of Education. . . . It is the first time that two Federal units have meshed efforts and cash in the cause of culture.”

Other grants awarded that year went to the New York Shakespeare Festival for its mobile theater units, to San Francisco’s American Conservatory Theater for its training and educational programs, to the Experimental Playwrights’ Theater to produce outstanding new American plays, and to the National Repertory Theatre to support touring classical productions throughout the country.

[I haven’t been able to identify the Experimental Playwrights’ Theater, which was also mentioned in Chap. 2 (8 November 2023), but the National Repertory Theatre was founded in 1961 as a touring company by Michael Dewell (1931-94) and Frances Ann Hersey (1919-2001). It seems to have been based in New York City until 1967, when it moved to Washington, D.C., becoming the resident company at Ford’s Theatre. In 1970, NRT moved to Los Angeles as the National Repertory Theatre Foundation. From that point on, NRTF focused on developing, sponsoring, and consulting on projects like the Los Angeles Free Shakespeare Festival, The Company Theatre workshop, The Bilingual Foundation for the Arts, and the National Play Award.]

Almost from its inception the Arts Endowment relied on the peer-panel review system to identify the strongest applications and ensure informed decision-making in the agency. The significance of the panels in the early years is vividly illustrated by the roster of theater professionals who served on them. In 1972, for instance, the members included Harold Prince, Joseph Papp, Lloyd Richards, Zelda Fichandler, Peter Zeisler, Robert Brustein, Gordon Davidson, John Lahr, Jean-Claude van Itallie, Donald Seawell, and Earle Gister.

A Separate Program

In 1967, the Arts Endowment established theater as an independent program. Under the leadership of Ruth Mayleas, the agency’s first Theater director, the recommendations of the panels and decisions by the National Council on the Arts had a significant impact on the future of theater in America. [Musical theater came under the Opera/Music Theater Program, which was formed in 1979.] Through both the Theater Program and the Expansion Arts Program, support extended to a rapidly growing national network of theaters. The program’s commitment to new work was reflected in its support for new play festivals such as Actors Theatre of Louisville’s Humana Festival of New American Plays, and for playwriting workshops including the Eugene O’Neill Memorial Theater Center in Waterford, Connecticut. A Playwriting Fellowship category was offered in the Literature Program through the 1970s, until it was transferred to the Theater Program in 1980. Support for playwrights through institutions and fellowships was integral to the explosion of new theaters and new work throughout the decade.

The agency also worked on behind-the-scenes issues such as the payment of reasonable fees and salaries to artists. The Arts Endowment offered Challenge or Advancement Grants to help companies acquire new facilities, hire new management, and build institutional capacity. A professional theater training program was established as well as a program to help young directors through the transition from training to professional career. Earmarked support was also directed to presenting companies, touring projects, theater for youth, mimes, translators, and designers.

During its first year, the NEA Theater Program invited resident theaters to apply for matching grants of between $10,000 and $25,000 [$87,300 to $218,300 in 2023] to “be used for general artistic and organizational development, and to include any special programs or projects in line with this development.” The category targeted geographically diverse groups of performing arts organizations, and was intended to assist the growth and development of a decentralized American professional theater by helping to strengthen existing companies. By 1971, grants totaling $559,000 [$4.2 million today] were awarded to 26 theaters across the country. Recipients included:

• Front Street Theater, Memphis, Tennessee

• Cleveland Play House

• Dallas Theatre Center

• Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park

• Milwaukee Repertory Theater

• Seattle Repertory Theatre

• Olney Theatre, Maryland

The Arts Endowment continued to focus on strengthening the burgeoning, decentralized nonprofit professional theater movement. Support for services to the field, such as publications, management programs, artists services, and meetings administered by the Theatre Communications Group—a national service organization dedicated to strengthening, nurturing, and promoting nonprofit theater— ensured field-wide support to shore up administrative and organizational capacity for nonprofit theaters throughout the nation. The NEA awarded funding to new play producing groups in order to ensure a reinvigorated corpus of new works that could be made available to producing organizations and their audiences across the nation. Support also continued for the Theatre Development Fund and its visionary ticket subsidy programs. This program was dedicated to creating affordable admission for audience members from underserved and disadvantaged populations and helped to ensure broader public participation in the art form.

[The Theatre Communications Group is a nonprofit service organization established in 1961 and headquartered in New York City that promotes professional nonprofit theater in the U.S.  TCG also publishes American Theatre, a monthly magazine, and ARTSEARCH, a theatrical employment bulletin, as well as paperback editions of play texts.

[The Theatre Development Fund is a nonprofit performing arts service organization in New York City created in 1968.  In addition to the ticket subsidy program, TDF operates the popular TKTS Discount Booths in Times Square, Lincoln Center, and Downtown Brooklyn which offer tickets to Broadway and Off-Broadway musicals and plays, and dance and music productions at discounts.  (There was a TKTS Booth in the World Trade Center that was lost on 9/11.  A dance and music booth operated in Bryant Park until 2019, but it wasn’t a TDF facility.)  Other services include the TDF Accessibility Program, known as TAP, for disabled, hearing-impaired, and autistic theatergoers, and educational programs for schools and student artists and audiences.]

In 1973, the Theater Program initiated a pilot project for Regional Theater Touring. While agency support of the regional theater movement had already expanded the geographic reach of live theater in numerous metropolitan areas across the nation, this program would work to create opportunities for participation in areas that were more geographically isolated. The touring program awarded five grants totaling $209,243 [$1.4 million] to recipients including Center Stage of Baltimore for its production of Robert Sherwood’s The Petrified Forest and The Guthrie Theater for its production of John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men.

New Growth—New Challenges

In 1976, 45 nonprofit professional theater companies received grants from the Arts Endowment. One-third of the main stage productions mounted that season were new plays (124 out of 378). The proportion is an indication of how the Arts Endowment influenced the field in its first decade. In 1966, nearly all new plays that reached a wide audience originated on the commercial stage and then filtered down to other, non-commercial levels of the theater. Ten years later, the situation had nearly reversed, with most new work being generated by nonprofit theater institutions. Perhaps the most compelling transformation was how the movement had succeeded in becoming effectively decentralized. That year, Peter Donnelly, managing director of the Seattle Repertory Theatre, wrote, “What has been accomplished in the last decade with the assistance of the Endowment has been quite phenomenal. A theatre which for all practical purposes did not exist except in New York has been created nationally.”

Many institutions from many regions received agency support under the Professional Theater Companies category, including Actors Theatre of Louisville, the Alley Theatre in Houston, the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, the Circle in the Square in New York, the Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, Milwaukee Repertory Theater, The Old Globe Theatre in San Diego, South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa [California], and the Studio Arena Theatre in Buffalo. Additional funding was also made available in other categories, such as Professional Theater Companies with Short Seasons; Theater for Youth; and Developmental Theater, New Plays, New Playwrights, New Forms.

After roughly one decade of agency support, it appeared as though Margo Jones’s dream of an American civilization being enriched by theater—in every region of the nation—was beginning to come true.

The institutional growth was encouraging, but it also introduced new perils for the art form that it supported. Growing dependence on larger box office receipts, subscriptions, and other sources of income—coupled with the demands and expenses incurred from larger venues and their necessary support staff—threatened to eat away at the adventurous spirit that had launched the movement in the first place. The pressure to install cautious programming that would not put an institution at risk was always present. Arthur Ballet, Theater Program director [1978-81], recognized this concern and how the agency could respond to it when he wrote in the Arts Endowment’s 1979 Annual Report:

“The Endowment’s Theater Program stands at a crossroads. On one hand, the Program can choose safety, staying just behind the field, behind inflation, behind the sure warhorses of production and plays. Or the Program can begin to shift priorities, to try new ideas, new directions. We are taking the latter path.”

This latter path resulted in establishing new funding programs designed to encourage and support young artists with fresh concepts and new ideas:

• Director Fellowships to assist the career development of directors who have demonstrated an ability and commitment to work in professional theater 

• Artistic Advancement/Ongoing Ensembles to help existing theater companies create or strengthen relationships with their resident artists

• Professional Theater Presenters to reach underserved audiences by supporting performances by nonprofit professional touring companies in places where such work is not usually available to audiences

• Designer Fellowships to provide individual stage designers of exceptional talent, who work in the American nonprofit professional theaters, with financial support and creative opportunities

[Arthur Ballet (1924-2012) was an academic, dramaturg, and director.  He taught at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis from 1959 to 1985 and, as a Fulbright professor, taught in Denmark.  Ballet served as dramaturg at the Guthrie Theater, the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, and the National Playwrights Conference at the O'Neill Theatre Center in Waterford, Connecticut. He was a founding member of Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas and an occasional theater and film reviewer.  Ballet was the editor of 13 volumes of the new-plays anthology Playwrights for Tomorrow.]

The structure of the Theater Program continued to evolve. By 1984, the Arts Endowment was providing funding via ten separate theater categories, including those focused on touring, training, direction, playwriting, translation, and other special projects, but by 1986 these had been consolidated into four major core categories: Support to Individuals, National Resources, Professional Theater Companies, and Artistic Advancement.

During this time, various economic and cultural shifts and pressures in the country fed a burgeoning solo performance scene whose artists reflected a wide variety of tastes and influences. These artists had minimal production costs and demands, and were able to create unconventional, highly individualistic pieces that could be performed practically anywhere. The flexible nature of this new arena provided a platform for a wide variety of artists to present—or confront—an audience with all manner of ideas, performance styles, and individual perspectives. The influence that these artists carried with them was as broad as any that had been exhibited from the American stage and included not only classical and modern theater, but popular dance and downtown art scenes as well.

[O’Brien’s description above is clearly a reference to performance artists like those named below, but it also applies to monologists like Spalding Gray (1941-2004) and Garrison Keillor (b. 1942), and new vaudevillians like Bill Irwin (b. 1950) and David Shiner (b. 1953). 

[It also describes the solo character work of Whoopi Goldberg (b. 1955) in her early career, Danitra Vance (1954-94) before Saturday Night Live, and Lily Tomlin (b. 1939) after Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In.  There are performance reports on Vance (“Short Takes: Some Unique Performances”) on 28 July 2018 and Irwin and Shiner together (Old Hats) on 22 March 2013.]

In May of 1990, Chairman John Frohnmayer, acting on recommendation of the National Council on the Arts, rejected grants to performance artists Karen Finley, Tim Miller, John Fleck, and Holly Hughes (who collectively became known as The NEA Four [see Chap. 6 (20 November 2023) and elsewhere in the report; also my ROT post on “Performance Art,” 7 and 10 November 2013]. The four artists sued the agency for the amounts of the grants resulting in a public controversy that led to pressure from Congress to eventually discontinue NEA support for individual artists and to make drastic cuts in its budget and staffing. As the NEA’s grant process shifted away from discipline-based applications toward four new agency-wide categories—Creation and Presentation, Education and Access, Heritage and Preservation, Planning and Stabilization—the agency was pressed to demonstrate more directly the public benefits of its grants. The Theater Program turned directly toward its service organizations to sustain the infrastructure of the field, with the Theatre Communications Group (TCG) being the most prominent. Since then, the NEA has collaborated with TCG in a number of ways. For instance, the NEA/TCG Theater Residency Program for Playwrights was created in 1996 at the initiation of Chairman Jane Alexander [Chap. 7 (30 November 2023)] and Theater Director Gigi Bolt [1995-2006], and support for early-career directors and designers was reshaped into the NEA/TCG Career Development Programs for Directors and Designers.

Shakespeare On Military Bases

In 2004, in an effort to make good on its commitment to bring the arts to all Americans, the Arts Endowment created the first program in its history dedicated to reaching military personnel and their families. As part of the agency’s Shakespeare in American Communities program [see Chap. 10 (13 December 2023)], professional Shakespeare productions were presented at bases in 14 states. Supported by $1 million [$1.5 million] from the Department of Defense (DOD), the military tour was an unprecedented partnership at the time.

Through this initiative, Alabama Shakespeare Festival brought its production of Macbeth to 13 military installations, with additional bases visited by the Aquila Theatre Company, The Acting Company, and Artists Repertory Theatre. Performances were accompanied by educational workshops for base youth whenever possible. Most bases did not have a conventional theater, therefore performances were presented in movie theaters, auditoriums, and in one case, an airplane hangar shared with fighter jets.

Conclusion

From its inception, the Arts Endowment’s Theater Program focused on solidifying the artistic gains that had taken root in the field. The NEA was uniquely suited to enter into this struggling but potentially fertile environment, and to enable the best theater artists to pursue their best art and to broaden their exposure and impact.

The Arts Endowment is the largest funder of nonprofit theater in the United States, and can lay claim to playing a primary role in the expansion of nonprofit professional theater over the last 40 years. In 1965 there were a limited number of professional theater companies operating outside of New York. Since the Arts Endowment’s creation, American theater has grown exponentially. According to IRS records, by 1990, there were 991 nonprofit theaters throughout the country that reported annual budgets of $75,000 [$151,000] or more. Today [2008] there are more than 2,000.

[On 7 February 2023, TCG published its Theatre Facts for 2021.  It estimated that there were 1,852 professional nonprofit theaters operating in the U.S.  That was an increase of more than 30% from an estimated 1,422 nonprofits in 2020.] 

The quality of theater that has been produced through the Arts Endowment’s support is remarkable. Of the 35 Pulitzer Prizes awarded in drama since 1965, 30 have gone to works that originated in an NEA-supported nonprofit theater, including August: Osage County by Tracy Letts [Pulitzer in 2008], developed at Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago; Anna in the Tropics by Nilo Cruz [2003], developed by Florida’s New Theater and New Jersey’s McCarter Theatre; Suzan-Lori Parks’s Top Dog/Underdog [2002], developed at the Public Theater in New York; and Doug Wright’s I Am My Own Wife [2004], developed through workshops at Chicago’s About Face Theatre and California’s La Jolla Playhouse.

The economic and cultural impact that American theater now has on the nation is substantial. According to TCG’s “Theatre Facts 2005,” the 1,490 documented professional theaters in America during that year alone contributed $1.53 billion [$2.26 billion] to the U.S. economy in the form of payments for goods, services, and salaries (not including related induced spending for eating out, parking, babysitters, artists’ living expenses, and other goods and services). The positive impact that these activities have had on the cultural health of the nation is no less compelling, if harder to quantify.

These numbers indicate a strong level of interest and participation among the American public in live theater. The field continues to face new challenges, however, in ensuring its ongoing health and vitality. Production costs and ticket prices continue to rise. As we move into the twenty-first century, entertainment and cultural programming available to the public via cable and satellite programming as well as through the on-demand convenience of TiVo, Netflix, and pay-per-view, provide the public with a wealth of cheap and convenient choices for their limited time and dollars.

[This report was written before the rise of streaming services and computer conferencing sites such as Zoom (founded in 2012).  During the COVID shut-down, these increased in popularity as means of presenting and viewing both live and recorded performances and may remain part of the theater universe as theaters have returned to in-person performances.  See posts on ROT “Theater Online – A Preliminary Report” by Kirk Woodward and Rick (19 May 2020) and “The Diary of Anne Frank Online” (29 May 2020).]

The challenges facing the field of American theater today are substantial, but history has shown us that our greatest theatrical achievements of our past transpired in response to its greatest challenges. As Hallie Flanagan asserted in 1935 and Margo Jones and her many influential colleagues understood in the decades that followed, in order to thrive, the future of our American theater must be guided by deeply committed and authentic artistic ambitions. It must continue to engage our public in meaningful and transformative experiences that inform our understanding of ourselves and each other. Throughout its existence, the National Endowment for the Arts has sought out, celebrated, and supported the best of those efforts and has helped spur an enormous growth in the number of nonprofit theaters across the nation. Their combined civic impact, via the production of excellent plays, along with the delivery of arts education, outreach, and other civic-minded programs, has been one of the most encouraging cultural evolutions of our time.

[Bill O'Brien (b. 1967?) was the NEA Deputy Chairman for Grants and Awards, appointed by President Barack Obama (b. 1961; 44th President of the United States: 2009-17).  Until his appointment, O’Brien had served as the Arts Endowment’s Theater/Musical Theater Director since 2006.  Prior to joining the NEA, he was Managing and Producing Director of Los Angeles’s Deaf West Theater for seven years. He’s enjoyed a career as a theatrical director and a performer for stage, television, and film.

[This concludes my serialization of “National Endowment for the Arts: A History, 1965-2008” by Mark Bauerlein and Ellen Grantham.  If I’m successful at piecing together an outline of the NEA’s history from 2008, when Bauerlein and Grantham left off, to 2023. I’ll try to post it on 19 December, finishing out “A History of the National Endowment for the Arts.”]

A History of the National Endowment for the Arts: Chapter 10 & Epilogue

 

A Supplement to the Regional Theater Series

[Welcome back to the concluding installments of “A History of the National Endowment for the Arts” after a pause on 8 December for Kirk Woodward’s discussion of the Beatles’ release of “Now and Then.”  This installment is the final chapter and the epilogue of Part 1, “The History of the NEA,” of “National Endowment for the Arts: A History, 1965-2008” by Mark Bauerlein and Ellen Grantham. 

[Chapter 10, “Building a New Consensus,” covers the Arts Endowment chairmanship (2003-2009) of Dana Gioia (b. 1950), a poet, literary critic, literary translator, and essayist.  The Epilogue, “A Great Nation Deserves Great Art,” is a short summation of the results, benefits, efforts, and successes of the first three-quarters of the Arts Endowment’s existence.

[As I’ve recommended since the start of this series, visitors to ROT who are just encountering the NEA history should go back to the beginning and read Chapters 1 through 8/9, published on 5, 8, 11, 14, 17, 20, and 30 November, and 3 December, respectively.  The NEA’s report is report organized chronologically, so it won’t make much sense if you jump in at the end.] 

“NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS: A HISTORY, 1965-2008”
edited by Mark Bauerlein with Ellen Grantham
(National Endowment for the Arts, 2009) 

p a r t  I 

The HISTORY of the NEA

 

chapter 10

Building a New Consensus

The ninth chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, poet Dana Gioia, was nominated by President George W. Bush to succeed Michael Hammond on October 23, 2002. The U.S. Senate unanimously confirmed the nomination on January 29, 2003.

Chairman Gioia, 52 at the time of his confirmation, was an intellectual figure of national importance. He had published three collections of poetry, including Interrogations at Noon [2001], which won the 2002 American Book Award. His 1991 essay “Can Poetry Matter?” [Atlantic Monthly, April 1991] stimulated a major debate in the literary world, and a subsequent book, Can Poetry Matter?: Essays on Poetry and American Culture [1992], was short-listed for the National Book Critics Circle Award in criticism. He co-edited several best-selling literary textbooks with the poet X. J. Kennedy, and he had attained further distinction as a translator from Latin, Italian, and German. Also trained in music, Gioia had worked as a music critic and composed two opera libretti, Nosferatu [2001; jointly premiered by Rimrock Opera (Billings, Montana) and Opera Idaho (Boise), 2004] and Tony Caruso’s Final Broadcast [2005; premiered in Los Angeles, 2008; co-production by the Los Angeles Opera, OperaWorks, CSU-Northridge, and the Southern California Opera Guild].

Born to a working-class family of Italian and Mexican descent in Los Angeles and the first member of his family to attend college, Gioia graduated from Stanford University and received a master’s degree in comparative literature from Harvard, where he studied under the poets Robert Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Bishop. He returned to Stanford to attend business school and earned an MBA. Beginning in the late 1970s, he spent 15 years in New York working for General Foods while writing in the evenings. He eventually became a vice-president before leaving business in 1992 to write full-time.

Gioia’s Vision

Gioia inherited an Arts Endowment that showed some progress in increasing its budget and devising promising new programs. Still, the impact of the 1990s culture wars hung heavily over the NEA, and the severe cuts in funding and staffing remained a burdensome legacy. In spite of more than 100,000 grants given in every state and U.S. territory, the Arts Endowment remained best known for a few controversial grants given nearly a decade prior. Many members of Congress continued to criticize the agency, and anti-NEA legislation was regularly introduced. The media remained alert for potentially contentious grants, artists and arts organizations were bitter over the cutbacks, and public perception was mixed at best.

Gioia approached his new position with the aim of first changing the national conversation about the rationale for federal funding for the arts. In a speech delivered to the National Press Club in Washington, DC, on June 30, 2003, he asked, “Can the National Endowment for the Arts matter?” The speech was a sober statement of philosophy, and a sharp overview of the public standing of the agency. He began by observing that, “If the Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts had spoken to this forum ten years ago, the topic might well have been ‘Should the NEA Exist?’ At that time a serious cultural and political debate existed in Washington about whether the agency served a legitimate public function.” Gioia observed that this question had become moot, at least as a policy matter. Congress had saved the agency. The Arts Endowment had undergone severe budget cuts and a reduction in staff, but its continuing existence was assured. The question, to Gioia, was not should the NEA exist, but how could the NEA best serve the nation?

Gioia outlined his goal for the agency succinctly as “bringing the best in the arts and arts education to the broadest audience possible.” His vision stressed, first, that the agency needed to serve all Americans, including tens of millions in rural areas, inner cities, and military bases who had historically been ignored by the NEA. Second, the agency must enhance culture and enrich community life, especially by connecting “America with the best of its creative spirit.” To meet those goals, and do so in a way that would win over critics and change public perception, Gioia realized, would require more than funding strong applicants. It demanded a radical change in the still largely negative public perception of the agency, and these changes needed to be embodied in visible, national programs.

A New Approach Is Needed

The controversies of the previous decade showed that, in the media and political spheres, a single questionable grant could outweigh a thousand meritorious ones. Historically, the Arts Endowment’s successes tended to be seen merely at a local level. Only when a grant became controversial did it and the NEA receive national attention. Likewise, most arts organizations mounted programs that had only local impact, even though the larger issues they faced such as sustainability, funding, media coverage, and audience development transcended their local reach. Gioia concluded that the American arts might benefit from a different model than the NEA’s traditional piecemeal approach of awarding single grants to individual organizations for specific projects. Stronger national leadership was needed. Properly designed and executed, an expanded funding model could link local arts organizations to broader networks and partnerships in fruitful ways.

And so the Arts Endowment developed an ambitious new method of supporting the arts that would have unprecedented impact. In addition to continuing its numerous direct grants, the Arts Endowment created large initiatives designed to incorporate local organizations into broader national partnerships. These national initiatives improved both the efficiency and effectiveness of arts programs. By creating large national partnerships, these programs could achieve enormous economies of scale while also gaining publicity no individual organization could generate independently. Arts organizations were invited to apply for the opportunity to deliver a program to communities around the country, especially those in which opportunities to experience the arts were limited. These national initiatives served both artists’ need for employment and arts organizations’ need for funding, educational outreach, and affordable programming. In addition to reaching an unprecedentedly large and diverse public, the new initiatives provided the public—including the media and government officials—with tangible examples of the Arts Endowment’s achievements.

National Initiatives

Shakespeare in American Communities

In April 2003, Chairman Gioia announced the launch of the first national initiative, Shakespeare in American Communities, a project designed to bring Shakespeare to audiences and schools all across the U.S. and unite players in the arts and arts education systems. It also focused on reviving theatrical touring of serious drama, a once thriving practice that had become unaffordable for most companies. In its initial phase, the program organized regional tours of Shakespeare plays by six distinguished theater companies. First Lady Laura Bush and Motion Picture Association of America President Jack Valenti served as honorary chairs and Arts Midwest as partner.

[In a June 2008 NEA document entitled “National Initiatives: Shakespeare in American Communities: About Shakespeare in American Communities,” the agency named seven theater companies which participated in the touring program in 2003-04: The Acting Company (New York, NY) – Richard III; Alabama Shakespeare Festival (Montgomery, AL) – Macbeth; The Aquila Theatre Company (New York, NY) – Othello; Arkansas Repertory Theatre (Little Rock, AR) – Romeo and Juliet; Artists Repertory Theatre (Portland, OR) – A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Chicago Shakespeare Theater (Chicago, IL) – Romeo and Juliet; The Guthrie Theater (Minneapolis, MN) – Othello.]

The first phase of the program began in autumn 2003 and ran to November 2004. In that year, six companies visited 172 communities—mostly small and midsized towns—and 500 schools across all 50 states. As the initial phase gained momentum, an unexpected new dimension of the program began as the Department of Defense supported the NEA to expand the Shakespeare program to visit military bases and neighboring schools. It was the first time the National Endowment for the Arts had received funding from the Defense Department, and the first significant program that the Arts Endowment had ever offered to the millions of Americans in the military or their families. This surprising partnership signaled to the arts world, the press, and the general public that something new was happening at the agency.

Over the next four school years, Shakespeare in American Communities grew into the largest Shakespeare tour in history. Focusing increasingly on providing students with the opportunity to see a professional production of Shakespeare, the program eventually sponsored performances and tours by 77 theater companies, reaching more than 2,300 municipalities in all 50 states. The program also provided free education materials for teachers, including an audio CD and two award-winning films that featured Tom Hanks, William Shatner, Martin Sheen, Harold Bloom, Julie Taymor, Mel Gibson, and James Earl Jones, among other talented artists. By late 2008, the Shakespeare kits had been distributed to teachers and librarians across the country and reached more than 24 million students. In addition to its vast educational impact, the program gave 2,000 actors paying work performing classic theater—a great boon to professionals so often underemployed.

[The two videos noted above are Shakespeare In Our Time: Shakespeare in American Communities and Why Shakespeare? (both 2005).  The CD featuring literary scholar Bloom (1930-2019), among others, is An Introduction to Shakespeare (2003).]

Through its vast reach and broad appeal the Shakespeare program soon became the Arts Endowment’s signature initiative. Widely covered by the press, it signaled a resolve at the NEA to bring the best of art and arts education to communities that had previously been overlooked. It also demonstrated a new concern for improving arts education in U.S. high schools. As more theater companies, actors, presenters, teachers, and students participated, the program developed a large constituency of supporters, including many members of Congress, who appreciated major theater companies visiting their districts. The Shakespeare program also represented a substantial new investment in American theater since the Arts Endowment was able to create this historical tour without cutting existing grant support for the theater field, continuing to support a huge variety of other projects including approximately 135 new works each year.

Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience

As the events of 9/11 plunged the United States into a new era of geopolitics, the Arts Endowment leadership envisioned another, entirely new national initiative. In 2003, Connecticut Poet Laureate Marilyn Nelson and Chairman Gioia discussed a class on poetry Nelson had recently taught at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. “The cadets had really eaten up the experience of writing and reading poetry,” Nelson said. “Now some of them are e-mailing me from the war. I wish we could do something more—something tangible—for them.”

The conversation became the seed of Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience, which began in 2004. Under the direction of NEA Counselor to the Chairman Jon Parrish Peede, the Arts Endowment sponsored a series of writing workshops at military installations led by a group of distinguished and diverse writers, including Mark Bowden (Black Hawk Down), Tobias Wolff (In Pharaoh’s Army), Jeff Shaara (Gods and Generals), Tom Clancy (The Hunt for Red October), Bobbie Ann Mason (In Country), Stephen Lang (Beyond Glory), and Joe Haldeman (Forever War). As with the Shakespeare program, the Department of Defense and the military services became valuable partners, and The Boeing Company [the aerospace company] agreed to support it.

The response to the program was massive. Phone calls, letters, faxes, and e-mails poured into the NEA as military personnel and their families asked to participate, some calling from Baghdad and Kabul. Vietnam War veterans also sent emotional letters of support, stating that they wished they had been offered a similar opportunity decades earlier. During the next two years, teams of writers led workshops at 25 military bases in the U.S. and overseas for 6,000 service members and their spouses. Participation was so enthusiastic that the Arts Endowment decided to compile their best work in an anthology edited by Andrew Carroll. By the end, more than 12,000 pages of poems, memoirs, short stories, and letters were submitted by military personnel and their families and evaluated by an independent editorial panel of writers. As Gioia assured in the preface to the volume, “The Arts Endowment gave the visiting writers total freedom in conducting their workshops. They were not told what to teach, and they in turn gave the participants complete freedom on how and what to write.”

Essays written by service members and their families were published in The New Yorker in June 2006. In September 2006, the release of the anthology, Operation Homecoming: Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Home Front, in the Words of U.S. Troops and Their Families, published by Random House, was celebrated at the Library of Congress. The project also inspired two documentary films: Muse of Fire, directed by Lawrence Bridges, and Operation Homecoming, directed by Richard Robbins. Muse of Fire premiered at the National Archives in Washington, DC in March 2007. Operation Homecoming was broadcast on PBS in April 2007, eventually winning two Emmys in 2008, as well as becoming a finalist for a 2008 Academy Award.

NEA Jazz Masters Initiative

In 2004, Chairman Gioia took a small but venerable NEA program of fellowships to jazz musicians and expanded it to become the largest jazz program in the agency’s history. Renamed the NEA Jazz Masters Initiative, it stood at the center of an ambitious effort to recognize the distinctive American musical form and expand the audience for jazz in the United States. Gioia increased the number of fellowship winners and the dollar amount for the award. A category for “jazz advocate”—eventually named after A. B. Spellman—was added.

All components—including the NEA Jazz Masters on Tour, a series of presentations featuring performances, educational activities, and speaking engagements by NEA Jazz Masters in all 50 states—were united into the new initiative in partnership with Arts Midwest. With the expansion came NEA Jazz in the Schools, an educational program for high school teachers that combined a Web-based curriculum produced in partnership with Jazz at Lincoln Center. The Verizon Foundation provided early support for the school initiative, and the Verizon Corporation along with The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation donated funds to support NEA Jazz Masters on Tour. Meanwhile, the Arts Endowment worked with XM Satellite Radio to feature the NEA Jazz Masters on a daily radio segment across 13 news, talk, and music stations. Donating their radio time, XM broadcasted these popular jazz features as often as 120 times a day.

American Masterpieces

In January 2004, First Lady Laura Bush made an historic appearance at the Old Post Office Pavilion. At a news conference there, she announced the Arts Endowment’s new national initiative, American Masterpieces: Three Centuries of Artistic Genius, along with a Presidential request to Congress for an $18 million [$26.6 million in 2023] budget increase for FY 2005.

American Masterpieces brought exhibitions, concerts, dance performances, and broadcasts of great American art to large and small communities in all 50 states. Each grant was accompanied by an educational component that involved seminars, learning projects, and curricular materials, a feature that led Mrs. Bush to say, “I’m especially pleased at the program’s focus on arts education, as it is crucial that the knowledge and appreciation of our cultural legacy begins in our schools. The Endowment would support touring, local presentations, and arts education in order to acquaint Americans, especially students with the best of the nation’s artistic achievements.” By the end of 2005, Congress appropriated $10 million [$14.8 million today] for American Masterpieces, and support was firmly in place for the Visual Arts Touring, Musical Theater, Dance, Choral Music, and Literature components of the program. The art forms were remixed slightly each year. In 2006 Choral Music was added to the program, and in 2008 the chamber music and presenting fields received funding.

American Masterpieces has sustained an enormous number of tours, exhibitions, and festivals. Over 50 dance grants were awarded in the first three years of the program enabling companies like Alvin Ailey, Martha Graham, Luna Negra, Pilobolus, Trisha Brown, and José Limón to tour the nation. Meanwhile, over the past four years, 47 visual arts exhibitions from institutions such as the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Phillips Collection, George Eastman House, American Folk Art Museum, and Olana Partnership toured 200 venues across 39 states.

Research about Reading

Gioia placed great importance on careful research as a means to determine the public agenda for arts and arts education. In the early months of his chairmanship, the Arts Endowment’s Office of Research and Analysis began to analyze the results of the latest Survey of Public Participation in the Arts. As with previous surveys administered in 1982 and 1992, the Arts Endowment designed the 2002 questionnaire in consultation with survey experts and arts professionals, then commissioned the U.S. Bureau of the Census to collect a sample and conduct the survey.

The 1992 Arts Participation survey had offered reasons for optimism, with access to the arts and audiences on the rise in most art forms. In 2002, however, the trends reversed, with audience participation in the arts going down. Broken down by age groups, the findings proved even more troubling. The youngest group (18 to 24-year-olds) showed the steepest declines of all in numerous art forms. The percentage of young adults who listen to jazz on radio dropped by 11 points, while young listeners of classical music dropped by nine points. A major problem had clearly emerged in the American arts that would deeply influence NEA planning and programming—the decline of audiences in almost every art form, a decline steepest among the young.

One art form, however, underwent an especially daunting decline—literature. The rate of adults who read any fiction, poetry, or drama in the preceding 12 months—any imaginative writing of any length or quality in any medium—slid from 54 percent in 1992 to 46.7 percent in 2002. In addition, during this period, access to books and the arts expanded, with more libraries, museums, historic sites, performing arts spaces, and after-school programs in the United States every year. For literature, the portion of young adults who engaged in literary reading was 9.5 percentage points lower than ten years before—an astonishing drop in such a fundamental activity.

The reading declines called for further study, and Gioia commissioned an expanded analysis of the literary reading segment of the survey. The result was Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America, which turned out to be one of the most discussed and debated cultural stories of 2004. Created under then-Research Director Mark Bauerlein [the editor of this report], Reading at Risk showed literary reading rates falling precipitously in every demographic group—all ages, incomes, education levels, races, regions, and genders. Librarians, publishers, editors, writers, and educators weighed in on what Gioia termed “a national crisis,” and more than 600 stories and commentaries appeared in the first few weeks after its release. A serious national debate about the causes and extent of the reading decline had begun and would continue for years with the Arts Endowment taking the lead.

In 2007, the Arts Endowment’s research division, headed by Sunil Iyengar, issued an influential follow-up study, To Read or Not to Read: A Question of National Consequence. The report compiled reading data from other government agencies, private foundations, and university research centers, all of which reached a consistent finding. This comprehensive report reinforced and expanded the earlier conclusions. All Americans, especially young people, read less and read less well, and these declines had serious educational, economic, and civic consequences. These reports have remained the definitive reference point for treatments of the field of literary culture and publishing in America.

Re-Investing in Reading: The Big Read

Gioia acknowledged that no single program or government agency by itself could reverse the decline in reading. As the leading arts agency in the United States, however, the Arts Endowment assumed the task of developing a national initiative to encourage literary reading.

On May 9, 2006, the agency unveiled a new program, The Big Read. Building on ideas from existing “City Reads” programs, the National Endowment for the Arts created a partnership of public, private, nonprofit, and corporate entities—Arts Midwest, the Institute for Museum and Library Services, The Boeing Company, and the W. K. Kellogg Foundation—to support and administer an ambitious national reading program. The Big Read offers citizens the opportunity to read and discuss a single book within their communities, as well as provides comprehensive resources for discussing the work, including readers guides, teachers guides, CDs, and publicity material as well as a national public service campaign and an extensive Web site with comprehensive information on authors and their works.

For a pilot program, the Arts Endowment selected ten municipalities from across the country to receive grants to conduct and promote four- to six-week community-based programs aimed at both teens and adults. From January through June 2006, these diverse communities—ranging from rural Enterprise, Oregon (population 1,895) to metropolitan Miami-Dade, Florida (population 3,900,000)—took part in the pilot phase. Each community created unique events, activities, and literary programs around one of four classic novels: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, and To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.

To introduce public officials to the program, the NEA held a celebration of The Big Read on July 20, 2006, at the Library of Congress. Ray Bradbury participated vivaciously, greeting the capacity audience via a video recording. Members of Congress, including Senator Norm Coleman (R-MN), Representative Louise Slaughter (D-NY), and Representative Charles Taylor (R-NC) read passages from their favorite books. Mrs. Laura Bush, who enthusiastically joined The Big Read as its Honorary Chair, remarked, “In ten cities and towns across the United States, thousands of Americans are being introduced—or reintroduced—to the joys of reading literature. They’re learning how characters in our favorite stories become close friends that we can visit, just by reopening dog-eared volumes. They’re discovering how we can escape to another world by losing ourselves in a good book—only to find truths about humanity that lead us right back to our own lives.”

In its third year, The Big Read reached all 50 states as well as Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia. By 2009, more than 400 towns and cities will have hosted a Big Read program, with over 21,000 local and national organizations supporting the initiative. Indeed, The Big Read has become the largest federal literature program since the World War II Armed Services Editions project. Organizers choose from 27 books, ranging from classic novels such as Willa Cather’s My Ántonia and Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer to contemporary works such as Tobias Wolff’s Old School and Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried. The Arts Endowment also helped produce a weekday show on XM Satellite Radio focusing on The Big Read books. Broadcast three times daily, each book was read in half-hour segments. (All of the broadcast time was donated by XM Radio.) Among the many celebrated figures who volunteered their time and talents were Robert Duvall, Ed Harris, Robert Redford, Ray Bradbury, Nadine Gordimer, Edward Albee, Alice Walker, and Sandra Day O’Connor. The Arts Endowment, with Lawrence Bridges [director of the 2007 documentary film Muse of Fire; see above], also developed special introductory films presenting interviews and commentary by the living authors of The Big Read.

In late 2007, the Arts Endowment added an international component to The Big Read that included exchange programs with Egypt, Russia, and Mexico. In Egypt, partnerships were created in Cairo and Alexandria to bring American novels to readers (including the first Arabic translation of Fahrenheit 451). Meanwhile, American audiences read The Thief and the Dogs by Egyptian Nobel Laureate [1988] Naguib Mahfouz. Russia featured To Kill a Mockingbird in the Ivanovo and Saratov regions while selected American cities read Leo Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilyich. For the U.S./Mexico Big Read the NEA and the Fondo de Cultura Económica jointly produced an anthology of classic Mexican short stories, Sun, Stone, and Shadows, published in both Spanish and English editions to be read in both U.S. and Mexican cities. Each of these international titles became permanent selections for the U.S. Big Read.

Cleaning up the Old Post Office

Not all of Dana Gioia’s initiatives were national. Some of them were downright homey and domestic. When Gioia visited the Old Post Office in November of 2002, he was surprised and dismayed by the Arts Endowment’s cluttered corridors. The stately marble hallways had long served as storage for excess files, old books, office furniture, and an assortment of supplies and materials, for the agency was short on space. Although Gioia’s own desk sets no high standard for neatness—always piled high with books, documents, journals, and CDs—he felt a need for the NEA public spaces to portray the agency’s accomplishments. Laurence Baden, deputy chairman for Management and Budget, gradually secured more office and storage space in the Old Post Office. This expansion not only improved working conditions; it also allowed staff that had been dispersed around the building to enjoy a common working space with their colleagues.

[The Old Post Office building is discussed in Chapter 3 (11 November 2023) of this series; see also “Saving the Old Post Office,” a sidebar on p. 43 of the published NEA report.]

Today the corridors of the Old Post Office are clear of clutter. Those who visit the NEA enjoy viewing framed portraits of NEA Jazz Masters and stylish caricatures of American authors featured in The Big Read program. The staff also rescued its 1984 Oscar from storage to display as one more symbol of the agency’s achievements. Portraits of former chairmen now greet visitors to the chairman’s office, and striking paintings loaned by living American artists decorate the office walls.

[The Arts Endowment won an Honorary Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences at the 57th Academy Awards in 1984 “in recognition of its 20th anniversary and its dedicated commitment to fostering artistic and creative activity and excellence in every area of the arts.”  See Chapter 5 (17 November 2023).]

The Conversation Changes

By January 2004, the public conversation about the Arts Endowment had changed markedly. Discussing the proposed budget increase, Roger Kimball, conservative intellectual and previous critic of the NEA, now found the Arts Endowment “a vibrant force for the preservation and transmission of artistic culture.” Indeed, he added, “the NEA has become a clear-sighted, robust institution intent on bringing important art to the American people.” Kimball’s summary appeared in National Review Online, which had taken a different attitude toward the agency only a few years earlier. Meanwhile, veteran columnist William Safire of The New York Times likewise commended on the new programs, citing their bipartisan spirit. “The NEA has raised a banner of education and accessibility to which liberal and conservative can repair,” he said. The Wall Street Journal joined in the praise, too. In response to the new NEA Jazz Masters initiative, Nat Hentoff wrote, “No one with government funds to dispense has done more to bring jazz to American audiences than Dana Gioia.”

In a long piece in The New York Times, Bruce Weber [national arts correspondent and theater reviewer] wrote that the NEA under Chairman Gioia “has won the Congressional approbation that eluded his predecessors. And [Gioia] has done so without alienating artists, who tend to resist all restraints on their independence.” Michael Slenske’s [freelance writer] 2,700-word profile of Operation Homecoming, published in 2005 in The Boston Globe, referred to the program as an “innovative” model that not only serves an important historical purpose, but “promises to be helpful” in the recovery of war veterans.

Growing public support for Arts Endowment programs extended to Capitol Hill. In September 2004, Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL), who had previously been highly critical of the NEA, wrote to the Montgomery Advertiser to praise the Shakespeare initiative. “In my view,” he said, “these are the kinds of programs the National Endowment for the Arts should be sponsoring—taking the best of American art and culture and making it available, in this case, to our service men and women and their families. . . . I’m proud that the Alabama Shakespeare Festival was chosen to participate in the program.” In floor debates in the House of Representatives on May 18, 2006, Rush Holt (D-NJ) argued that an increase in NEA funding “will build programs that use the strength of the arts and our nation’s cultural life to enhance communities in every state and every county around America.” One month later, Representative Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) told his colleagues, “Funding for the arts is one of the best investments our government makes. In purely economic terms, it generates a return that would make any Wall Street investor jealous.”

Fortieth Anniversary

On March 10, 2005, when Chairman Gioia appeared before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies, he summarized the situation of the Arts Endowment: “As the National Endowment for the Arts approaches the fortieth anniversary of its founding legislation, the agency enjoys a renewed sense of confidence in its public mission, reputation, and record of service.” Chairman Gioia also noted that the “Arts Endowment now reaches both large and small communities as well as rural areas, inner cities, and military bases—successfully combining artistic excellence with public outreach.”

At public events throughout 2005 and 2006, the 40-year history of the Arts Endowment was noted and celebrated. [On 28-29 October 2005], the Lyndon B. Johnson Library and Museum at the University of Texas at Austin convened [The NEA at 40: Cultural Policy and American Democracy,] a three-day conference to commemorate the signing of the legislation establishing the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities [the NEH conference occurred on 27 October]. At panel discussions and receptions, the founding and evolution of the Arts Endowment were remembered. Among the many notable speakers was former Congressman John Brademas [D-IN], who discussed the original legislation creating the Arts Endowment [National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act, 29 September 1965 (Public Law 89-209); see Chapter 2 (8 November 2023)]. 

In November 2005, President and Mrs. Bush hosted a black-tie dinner at the White House to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of the NEA and NEH. Artists, scholars, and patrons attended, as did Lynda Bird Johnson Robb, daughter of President Johnson. President Bush paid tribute to NEA Chairman Gioia and the agency’s “support for music and dance, theater and the arts across our great country.” The NEA, he said, “has helped improve public access to education in the arts, offered workshops in writing, and brought artistic masterpieces to underserved communities.”

The capstone anniversary event was a symposium on arts and culture held at American University’s striking, new Katzen Arts Center [Washington, D.C.] in May 2006 [Visual Politics: The Art of Engagement, 17-19 May 2006]. It was an educational symposium for graduate students and young professionals to learn about the Arts Endowment and the dramatic growth of the arts during the last 40 years.

Highlights of the two-day [Washington Post reported three days] conference were the individual sessions convened by every discipline director to discuss the impact of the Arts Endowment on his or her field. Other events included a plenary session on international cultural exchange and a panel discussing public funding and private giving. Finally, graduate students from colleges and universities throughout the country presented papers on diverse topics relative to the arts in the public sector. The NEA’s fortieth anniversary celebrations, including this symposium on arts and culture, provided ample opportunities for gleaning lessons from the past to shape the next 40 years.

Gioia’s Second Term

On December 9, 2006, Dana Gioia was unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate for his second term as NEA chairman. During his second term, Chairman Gioia expanded the international activities of the NEA. Under the leadership of Pennie Ojeda, the agency created literary exchanges with Russia, Pakistan, Egypt, Northern Ireland, and Mexico. The Arts Endowment also streamlined its grants process and simplified its application categories. In its fortieth year, the NEA staff handled more applications (a 30 percent increase from Fiscal Year 2000 to 2004) and more grants (a 12 percent increase in the same period) without an increase in staff. While operating on a reduced administrative budget, the Arts Endowment also managed the substantial workload of Challenge America grants in order to reach every congressional district consistently each year.

Gioia continued to spend considerable time refining and expanding national initiatives. Believing that consistency of support and excellence of execution were essential to their success, he urged the NEA staff to look for ways to improve the programs with each new grants cycle. Application procedures were adjusted, teaching materials updated, Web sites revised and redesigned, and partnerships expanded.

Gioia also observed that arts organizations benefitted from being able to repeat programs. A theater company whose first tour was challenging gained the necessary experience to make subsequent tours go more smoothly. A school district modestly involved in one year’s jazz, poetry, or Shakespeare programs would greatly expand its participation the next time around. In a second Big Read program, a municipality coordinated its many partners more easily than in its first effort. Consistent NEA investment not only sustained the specific initiatives; it also helped build the expertise, confidence, and credibility of all the organizations involved. As the number of partners involved in these initiatives reached into the thousands, the widespread impact of this long-term planning and support became visible.

Historic Budget Increase

Congress noted the NEA’s progress with growing enthusiasm. In December of 2007, the NEA received a $20.1 million [$28.5 million] budget increase—the Arts Endowment’s largest increase in 29 years. The NEA’s $144.7 million [$200.2 million] budget for 2008 marked a 16 percent increase over 2007. This dramatic budget increase was not only a testament to Congress’s confidence in Gioia’s leadership, but a concrete example of the impact of the work of the NEA staff, including Senior Deputy Chairman Eileen Mason, Government Affairs Director Ann Guthrie Hingston, Communications Director Felicia Knight, and Congressional Liaison Shana Chase, in rebuilding the agency’s relationship with Capitol Hill and the media.

The NEA also helped secure historical legislative changes in the Arts and Artifacts Indemnity Program of the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities. The new legislation authorized a substantial increase, with the international indemnity ceiling reaching $10 billion [$13.8 billion, based on the valye of the dollar in 2008, the year of the changes in the indemnity program] along with an additional $5 billion [$6.9 billion] to support the creation of a domestic component to the program. In a period of skyrocketing art values and high insurance rates, it would be hard to exaggerate the importance of this legislation, which made major museum shows financially possible across the nation. As John E. Buchanan, Jr., director of museums with Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco noted, “It is one of the greatest things that the government can do for American art museums.”

The same legislation also created the NEA Opera Honors, the first new class of federal arts awards in 26 years. Like the Arts Endowment’s Jazz Masters awards, the NEA Opera Honors are lifetime achievement awards celebrating artists and advocates who have earned the highest distinction and made irreplaceable contributions to their field. The new program reflected Gioia’s conviction that the U.S. government needed to do more to recognize and celebrate the contributions of its artists. The first NEA Opera Honors recipients were soprano Leontyne Price, conductor James Levine, composer Carlisle Floyd, and director Richard Gaddes. Administered by OPERA America, the awards were greeted with enormous enthusiasm by the American classical music world.

Serving All Americans

In September 2008, Gioia announced his intention to resign the following January—two years before the end of his term—to return to writing. “I have given up six years of my creative life,” he remarked. “I want to return to poetry while I have the stamina and spirit to pursue the art seriously.” This announcement caused regret on both sides of the aisle. Congressman Patrick Tiberi (R-OH) wrote that Gioia “had successfully worked across party lines to bring broad support and enthusiasm to the arts and arts education.” Meanwhile Representative Betty McCollum (D-MN) praised Gioia’s democratization of the Arts Endowment, which “brought the arts to many new communities and demonstrated to Congress how the NEA’s work touches every corner of the country.”

As he prepared to leave office in late 2008, Gioia received what he termed “the best farewell gift imaginable.” American literary reading had risen for the first time in 26 years. After the universal declines charted in earlier NEA surveys, reading trends reversed among virtually every group measured. Best of all, young adults (age 18-24), who had shown the most drastic declines over the previous decades, now registered the largest increase of any group (+21 percent). Although the survey did not establish cause and effect, it seemed no coincidence that these young adults had been in high school when the NEA launched the national literary initiatives (Shakespeare in American Communities, Poetry Out Loud, and The Big Read) that had reached millions of teenagers during the previous six years. Likewise the NEA’s influential reading surveys had helped ignite national concern about the decline of reading and its effects. While these new positive trends reflected the work of countless teachers, librarians, writers, and parents, the NEA had played a catalytic role—demonstrating that well-focused federal investment could make a difference in American society.

*  *  *  *

epilogue

A Great Nation Deserves Great Art

Over the past four decades, the National Endowment for the Arts has established itself as a unique institution in American culture. As the official arts agency of the U.S. government, supported by yearly appropriations from Congress, the NEA has not only become the nation’s largest supporter of arts and arts education, but also, by its special position as the nexus between the public and private sectors, an irreplaceable institution. In addition to distributing thousands of grants each year, including critical funding to the state arts agencies, the Endowment also convenes panels that set standards of artistic quality, publishes research reports that guide informed discussions of cultural trends and policies, and creates institutional partnerships that now reach every community in the nation. The NEA’s direct financial influence has been enormous. To date, it has awarded more than 126,000 grants totaling over four billion dollars [$5.5 billion in 2023, based on the value of a dollar on 2008], a sum that has generated matching funds many times larger than the initial investment. As a result, American culture has been enlivened, enlarged, and democratized.

Such impressive results were surely in the minds of the legislators who first called the agency into existence in 1965 at a moment of cultural optimism in which the government’s vision of a great nation included a commensurably great artistic culture. Although these legislators might have been surprised by some of the subsequent debates involving the agency, they understood that the NEA represented a bold innovation in federal policy. How could such great innovation occur without incident? In retrospect, it seems inevitable that the growth of federal arts policy would involve debate, challenge, and change as the nation defined the new agency’s proper role. Guided by nine chairmen with diverse outlooks and leadership styles, the Arts Endowment has lived through an often turbulent period of cultural transformation. The agency has not merely survived these challenges; its work has been strengthened and clarified by them.

Today, the National Endowment for the Arts enjoys high regard for its commitment to bring the best of arts and arts education to all Americans. Supporting excellence in the arts—both new and traditional—across all of the disciplines, it fosters the nation’s creativity and brings the transformative power of the imagination into millions of lives, reaching many who would have no easy access to the arts without government funding. Having created a new national consensus for federal support of the arts, with strong bipartisan support from Congress and wide public approval, the agency has moved decisively into a positive new era. As a new Administration arrives in Washington, led by President-elect Barack Obama, who has voiced his belief in the federal cultural agencies, the Arts Endowment seems poised for continued growth. Under future chairmen, the agency will surely pursue new ideas and opportunities, but one thing will remain constant, the Endowment’s commitment to serve all Americans by bringing the arts into their lives, schools, and communities.

[Chapter 10 and the Epilogue concludes Part I, “The History of the NEA,” of “National Endowment for the Arts: A History, 1965-2008.”  After the final section of the serialization of Mark Bauerlein and Ellen Grantham’s Arts Endowment report, I will try to post the update of the NEA history from 2008 and 2023 (if I can find enough information to compile one).

[The next installment of “A History of the National Endowment for the Arts” will be from Part II of the NEA report, “The Impact of the NEA.”  That section is divided into six topics—"Dance,” “Literature,” “Media Arts,” “Museums and Visual Arts,” “Music and Opera,” and “Theater”—but I’m only going to post the theater segment.  It will run on 16 December and I hope you will all return for that.]

A History of the National Endowment for the Arts: Chapters 8 & 9

 

A Supplement to the Regional Theater Series 

[Thank you for coming back to Rick On Theater’s “A History of the National Endowment for the Arts” for Chapters 8 and 9 of the NEA report, “National Endowment for the Arts: A History, 1965-2008.”  This installment covers the chairmanships (1998-2001 and 2002) of folklorist and author Bill Ivey (b. 1944) and musician and educator Michael Hammond (1932-2002).

[As I have all along, I recommended that visitors to ROT who are just encountering this series go back first to the beginning and read Chapters 1 through 7, published on 4, 8, 11, 14, 17, 20, and 30 November, respectively.  The NEA’s history is presented chronologically, so it’ll make more sense if you read it in order.] 

“NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS: A HISTORY, 1965-2008”
edited by Mark Bauerlein with Ellen Grantham
(National Endowment for the Arts, 2009) 

p a r t  I

The HISTORY of the NEA

 

chapter 8

Broadening the Agency’s Reach

In his search for a successor to Jane Alexander in December 1997, President Clinton turned to the director of the Country Music Foundation in Nashville, Bill Ivey, as the seventh chairman of the Arts Endowment. Ivey was born in Detroit in 1944 and grew up in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. He received his education at the University of Michigan and Indiana University, earning history, folklore, and ethnomusicology degrees. In 1994, Ivey had been named to the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities. He also served two terms as president of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, as a senior research fellow at the Institute for Studies in American Music at Brooklyn College, and as a faculty member of the Blair School of Music at Vanderbilt University.

Ivey was known primarily as an advocate for the preservation of country, folk, and popular music. The Country Music Foundation operated with an annual budget of $4 million [around $6.9 million in 2023, figuring from 1998 dollars, the last year of Ivey’s CMF directorship], and through it, Ivey administered the Country Music Hall of Fame from 1971 to 1998, while publishing a journal and directing a record label. After being unanimously confirmed by the Senate, Ivey was sworn in as chairman in 1998. A populist, Ivey represented a new sort of federal arts leader. While public and political support for the agency remained low, and the agency’s budget had been cut by 40 percent, his profile was helpful in reassuring Congressional critics who believed that the Arts Endowment’s programs catered to cultural elites.

The Washington Post quoted Ivey on the announcement of his pending appointment, affirming that the Arts Endowment was “a very important agency, particularly in its role of nurturing excellence in all the arts . . . it would be an ultimate job for me.” The same newspaper cited praise of Ivey as “an amazing generalist” by Michael Greene, president of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. Greene endorsed Ivey as one who knew “a tremendous amount about the visual arts and folklore,” and who “in terms of arts advocacy . . . had always gone down the center. He hasn’t jumped into any camp.”

Ivey’s first annual message as chairman was short. He noted that since its creation in 1965, the Arts Endowment had awarded 110,000 grants, supported museum shows and theater companies of varying size, established arts classes for youth, televised concerts and folk festivals, and developed innovative public-private partnerships. With the budget at $98 million [$169.5 million today], grants in 1998 emphasized diversity, including support to a theater group for a play about African-American performer Paul Robeson, a Hispanic performing arts series, a country music program in Nashville, folk art instruction in Nevada, and Alaskan native authors and storytellers.

[The 1998 Paul Robeson (1898-1976) play production supported by an NEA grant was Paul Robeson, All-American developed and presented by TheatreWorks/USA, a company which produces original plays geared towards younger audiences. Created for the celebration of the 100th anniversary of Robeson’s birth, the musical play was written by actor and playwright Ossi Davis (1917-2005) with music composed by Jason Robert Brown (b. 1970).

[The play’s début was staged by John Henry Davis with choreography by Thomas DeFrantz (b. 1931) at the Tribeca Performing Arts Center at the Borough of Manhattan Community College (Lower Manhattan) from 13 to 25 July 1998. The part of Robeson was played by operatic bass baritone Stacey Robinson.]

Less than a month after Ivey’s confirmation, the Arts Endowment claimed a major victory when the Supreme Court affirmed on June 25, 1998, by a vote of eight to one, the constitutionality of the statutory provision requiring the agency to consider “standards of decency and respect for the diverse beliefs and values of the American public” in its application review process. The sole dissenting Justice was David H. Souter. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, writing for the majority, held that the Congress had the right to be vague in setting criteria for spending money, and the decency clause did not, on its face, discriminate on the basis of viewpoint. In a separate opinion, but one that joined the majority, Justice Antonin Scalia declared, “It is the very business of government to favor and disfavor points of view on innumerable subjects, which is the main reason we have decided to elect those who run the government, rather than save money on making their posts hereditary.”

Broadening Local Appeal

Chairman Ivey demonstrated a deep understanding of the infrastructure and public policy needs of American cultural enterprises. Furthermore, Ivey built on Alexander’s reorganization with further reforms—for example, engaging program directors more in the grant-making process, specifically, in determining grant amounts. Ivey, having previously served on NEA panels, believed that some panelists had too narrow a focus, and welcomed the discipline directors’ expertise and broad perspective.

With the NEA budget remaining essentially flat for two more years, Ivey nevertheless introduced strategies for enhancing American cultural life, including the development of a broad initiative called Continental Harmony. Administered by the St. Paul, Minnesota-based American Composers Forum, the program placed composers-in-residence with local chamber music ensembles to develop new musical works reflecting the sensibilities and traditions of local communities. Many of the compositions premiered on July 4, 2000. Continental Harmony exemplified a new approach in Arts Endowment programming that also included ArtsREACH, a program launched in 1998 that funded arts projects in states identified as “underrepresented” in the agency’s grant count. ArtsREACH answered Congressional demands that NEA funding reach underserved areas. States that received special attention and grants workshops under ArtsREACH included Alabama, Indiana, Iowa, South Carolina, and South Dakota. In 1999, ArtsREACH increased the agency’s grantmaking in 20 targeted states by more than 350 percent. It served as a prototype for another program, Challenge America, which also emphasized outreach and arts education for previously underserved areas.

That year, in his Annual Report message, Chairman Ivey outlined his vision. Conforming to the requirements of Congress, Ivey developed a strategic plan for the years 1999–2004, and named it “An Investment in America’s Living Cultural Heritage.” The plan included a revised mission statement: “The National Endowment for the Arts, an investment in America’s living cultural heritage, serves the public good by nurturing the expression of human creativity, supporting the cultivation of community spirit, and fostering the recognition and appreciation of the excellence and diversity of our nation’s artistic accomplishments” (emphasis original). The goals of the five-year strategic plan reinforced the sense that the NEA under Ivey would broaden participation and local appeal in Arts Endowment activities.

In his chairman’s statement accompanying the plan, Ivey highlighted his populist bent: “Today, art is no longer confined to paintings in museums—or dances, plays and symphonies in concert halls and theaters. . . . It’s in large cities and in the smallest, most remote towns. Besides anchoring communities, growing the economy, and increasing jobs, the arts give communities a sense of identity, shared pride, sound design that affects how we live, and a way to communicate across cultural boundaries.” Echoing the agency’s enabling legislation, the introduction stated, “It is vital to democracy to honor and preserve its multi-cultural artistic heritage as well as support new ideas; and therefore it is essential to provide financial assistance to its artists and the organizations that support their work.”

The expansion of Arts Endowment grants to more communities remained a touchstone of the Ivey chairmanship. In the area of design, he instituted four Leadership Initiatives to improve design standards across the country. The initiatives focused on government facilities, obsolete suburban malls, schools, and the stewardship of rural areas. Another NEA program during this period, the YouthARTS project, brought the Arts Endowment together with the Department of Justice to address crime by minors. This partnership helped establish arts programs inside juvenile justice facilities and in “at-risk” neighborhoods.

Thirty-Fifth Anniversary

The Arts Endowment celebrated its thirty-fifth year in 2000 by organizing “America’s Creative Legacy: An NEA Forum at Harvard,” cosponsored by the Kennedy School of Government. The conference was held with the participation of Chairman Ivey and all his living predecessors—Jane Alexander, John Frohnmayer, Frank Hodsoll, and Livingston Biddle [Chaps. 7, 6, 5, and 4, respectively]. The forum reflected the arrival of the millennium and the roll-out of millennium projects developed by the Arts Endowment over several years. The White House Millennium Council’s Final Report on these efforts, which was issued in January 2001, included a section titled “Imagining America: Artists and Scholars in Public Life,” which declared, “The arts and the disciplines of the humanities have a real effect on individuals, institutions, and communities. But too often, artists and scholars are separated from public involvement, precluding valuable collaboration.”

Chairman Ivey laid out the accomplishments of the Endowment over 35 years by restating his belief that “the agency strengthens American democracy at its core.” The Arts Endowment’s support assisted in the growth of local arts agencies from 400 to 4,000, nonprofit theaters from 56 to 340, symphony orchestras from 980 to 1,800, opera companies from 27 to 113, and dance companies multiplied by 18 times since 1965.

In the 2000 Annual Report chairman’s statement, Ivey pointed out that the Arts Endowment had bipartisan support in Congress, and he proposed a “Cultural Bill of Rights” for Americans, comprising:

1. Heritage: The right to fully explore America’s artistic traditions that define us as families, communities, ethnicities, and regions.

2. A Creative Life: The right to learn the processes and traditions of art, and the right to create art.

3. Artists and Their Work: The right to engage the work and knowledge of a healthy community of creative artists.

4. Performances, Exhibitions, and Programs: The right to be able to choose among a broad range of experiences and services provided by a well-supported community of cultural organizations.

5. Art and Diplomacy: The right to have the rich diversity of our nation’s creative life made available to people outside of the United States.

6. Understanding Quality: The right to engage and share in art that embodies overarching values and ideas that have lasted through the centuries.

Finally, Ivey stated, “As we move into a new millennium, the NEA is committed to citizen service.” Although never adopted in any broader public sense, this “Cultural Bill of Rights” provided a vivid snapshot of Chairman Ivey’s vision for the Arts Endowment.

Challenge America

The agency’s 2000 budget stood at its lowest in a quarter-century, totaling only $97.6 million [$161.6 million]. Chairman Ivey gained a $7.4 million [$12.2 million] increase for the Arts Endowment budget for fiscal year 2001, raising the agency’s annual appropriation to $105 million [$169.5 million]. After an attempt by the bipartisan House Arts Caucus to increase the NEA’s budget failed, Senator Slade Gorton (R-WA) led a successful effort through the Senate to increase the NEA’s budget. The increase was ultimately maintained in the final version of the bill agreed upon by both the House and Senate in conference.

The new funding was earmarked exclusively for the Challenge America Arts Fund to provide grants for outreach and arts education projects in remote and previously neglected communities. This important program represents Ivey’s major legislative triumph. After almost a decade of cuts, it marked the first increase in the Arts Endowment’s budget since 1992. The following year, Congress raised the Endowment’s budget to $115.2 million [$182 million], again with the increases going to the Challenge America program.

Under Ivey, Challenge America began as a short-term mechanism for enhancing the arts, arts education, and community activities in underrepresented areas. The program was expanded and under future Chairman Dana Gioia, the NEA achieved national reach through Challenge America by awarding a direct grant to every U.S. Congressional district. The program’s popularity with Congress also continued to grow. In July 2003, Representative Lynn Woolsey (D-CA) stated, “NEA programs such as Challenge America are using art as a means to bring communities together. Along with the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development and the National Guild of Community Schools, Challenge America has started a program that offers arts instruction to children living in public housing. When we deprive the NEA and NEH of the funds it needs, we deprive this entire nation of an active cultural community.” Support for the program continued throughout the Administration of President George W. Bush, who requested $17 million [$25.6 million] for Challenge America for fiscal year 2004.

Arts and Accessibility

The NEA’s Office of AccessAbility, originally named Special Constituencies Office [until 1994], was created under Chairman Nancy Hanks [Chap. 3] in 1976 in response to an appeal by National Council on the Arts member Jamie Wyeth. Wyeth and his wife, who uses a wheelchair, were often unable to attend cultural events as the venues were not accessible. The National Council resolved that “No Citizen, regardless of physical and mental condition and abilities, age or living environment, should be deprived of the beauty and insights into the human experience that only the arts can impart.”

The NEA became a leader in the field of accessibility, and was the third federal agency to publish its Section 504 Regulations in the federal register. The AccessAbility Office, in addition to serving as an advocate for those who are older, disabled, or living in institutions, established a series of initiatives to advance the Arts Endowment’s access goals: Universal Design, Careers in the Arts for People with Disabilities, Arts in Healthcare, and Creativity and Aging.

In a 1998 speech to the National Forum on Careers in the Arts for People with Disabilities, Chairman Ivey reiterated the importance of the work of the Arts Endowment in the field of accessibility. “Most Americans will experience disability at some time during their lifespan, either themselves, or, like me, within their families. As with aging, it is an experience that touches everyone. Thus working towards a fully accessible and inclusive culture is important to all Americans.”

Ivey Moves On

The end of 2000 brought a presidential election and the victory of Republican George W. Bush. The new First Lady, Laura Bush, made her vigorous support for culture and the arts clear from the beginning of her residence in the White House.

Bill Ivey remained in charge of the Arts Endowment, and—like Nancy Hanks two decades earlier—wondered whether the NEA chairmanship could become a nonpartisan appointment. Bill Ivey served nine months under the new Republican Administration. In April 2001 he announced that he would resign in September of that year, six months before the expiration of his term. Before his departure, he championed the NEA’s FY 2002 budget request before Congress and expressed his hope that “the new Administration will be able to move efficiently to choose new leadership for the Arts Endowment.” But the controversies that had plagued the agency remained vivid, and the public image of the Arts Endowment continued to be dictated largely by its critics.

*  *  *  *

[Chapter 9, “In Dark Hours,” the next installment of “A History of the National Endowment for the Arts,” chronicles the brief 2002 chairmanship of musician and educator Michael Hammond (1932-2002), who died of a heart attack one week after being sworn in.]

chapter 9

In Dark Hours

Before a successor to Chairman Bill Ivey could be appointed, America underwent the frightful experience of September 11, 2001, stunned by the horror of the attacks on New York and Washington, DC. Federal employees close to the Capitol, and in tall buildings such as the Old Post Office, were especially alarmed. On the day of the attacks, panelists reviewing fellowship applications for literature projects gazed out the windows as smoke rose from the Pentagon across the river. Evacuated from the building, they decided to assemble in a nearby hotel and continue to work.

Because New York City, the main target of the terrorists, is the nation’s arts center, the impact of September 11 on artists and cultural institutions was felt nationwide. Immediate action was taken by the Heritage Emergency National Task Force to assess structures and collections in the areas of the 9/11 attacks. Within hours, the American Association of Museums reported that all New York museum staff were accounted for and museum collections safe.

However, on the 105th floor of the North Tower of the World Trade Center, the Cantor Fitzgerald investment firm had suffered the horrific loss of hundreds of employees. The world’s largest corporate collection of works by sculptor Auguste Rodin and numerous works by Alexander Calder, Roy Lichtenstein, and Louise Nevelson were destroyed. Next door in the South Tower, the National Development and Research Institutes Library was completely wrecked, as were the offices of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. The Broadway Theater Archive, with 35,000 photographs, that stood a block from the World Trade Center was also lost, and 13 other historically or architecturally significant structures, including the Federal Hall National Memorial, were damaged.

[The Federal Hall National Memorial, established in 1955, is in the historic building at 26 Wall Street in the Financial District of Manhattan in New York City. The current Greek Revival–style building, completed in 1842 as the Custom House, is owned by the United States federal government and operated by the National Park Service as a national memorial. The memorial is named after a Federal style building on the same site, completed in 1703 as City Hall, which the government of the newly independent United States used during the 1780s.  It was demolished in 1812.

[The current national memorial commemorates the historic events that occurred at the original structure. With the establishment of the United States federal government in 1789, the Federal style building was renamed Federal Hall. It was the home of the Congress of the Confederation. the first U.S. Capitol building, and the site of George Washington’s inauguration.]

In the days and weeks immediately following September 11, Americans turned to the arts, especially to music and poetry, to express their grief. Media focused on the dark stages of Broadway and paid little attention to the blight of the nonprofit arts community. Congress debated how to expedite relief to New York City while arts groups navigated eligibility requirements to secure loans from the Small Business Administration and aid from the Federal Emergency Preparedness Agency.

The economic impact of the terrorist attacks on each of the arts fields was assessed by the NEA. There was a dramatic downturn in year-end giving to nonprofit arts organizations as donors directed giving to 9/11 charities. Revenues were lost from cancelled performances and low attendance at arts events. The general economic slump, decline in tourism and travel, and reduction in state tax revenues brought about cuts in state and local arts budgets. New York City announced a 15 percent across-the-board cut in funding for cultural organizations. Insurance costs rose, in part because of increased security needs at public performances.

The Arts Endowment issued a Chairman’s extraordinary action grant through the New York State Council on the Arts to help artists in Lower Manhattan begin the process of cleaning and repairing offices and purchasing equipment. Over the years, the Endowment had provided similar emergency disaster grants to arts organizations devastated by floods, earthquakes, and hurricanes, and help after the bombing of the Oklahoma City Federal Building.

[The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City was the target of a bombing by domestic terrorists Timothy McVeigh (1968-2001) and Terry Nichols (b. 1955) on 19 April 1995. The truck bomb that was detonated in front of the building killed 168 people, including 19 children at a day-care center housed in the building, and injured 680 others.

[One third of the building collapsed and the remains were demolished a month after the attack. The Oklahoma City National Memorial, formally dedicated on the fifth anniversary of the bombing, 19 April 2000, was built on the site.

[McVeigh was tried and found guilty of the attack, and sentenced to death. He was executed in 2001. Co-conspirator Nichols is serving multiple sentences of life without parole in a federal prison.]

More substantial help for New York’s cultural organizations came from private foundations. The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation created a special $50 million fund [$80.7 million in 2023] to benefit those museums, libraries, and performing arts organizations most directly affected. Several years later President Bush presented the Mellon Foundation with the nation’s highest award to artists and arts patrons, the 2004 National Medal of Arts for “civic leadership in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks.”

Hammond Appointed

Eight days after September 11, President George W. Bush announced his intention to nominate Michael Hammond, dean of the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University in Houston, as chairman of the Arts Endowment.

Hammond was a conductor and composer, but he also brought vast educational and arts administration experience to the agency. A Wisconsin native, he attended Lawrence University and Delhi University, India, and earned a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University where he received degrees in philosophy, psychology, and physiology. Before joining the Shepherd School in 1986, Hammond directed the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music in Milwaukee, and then moved to New York State to become the founding Dean of Music at the State University of New York at Purchase [in Westchester County, a suburban country north of New York City]. Subsequently, he served as president of the college. While in New York, he founded the celebrated international arts festival at Purchase, known as Pepsico Summerfare [1980-1989; named for its principal sponsor, the former Pepsi-Cola Company, headquartered in Purchase]. The new chairman, at 69, had long been active in orchestral and vocal music, but his biography was so diverse that it also included lecturing in neuroanatomy to medical students in Wisconsin.

In a statement reflecting the somber mood of the country in those days and weeks, Hammond declared, “I am deeply honored by President Bush’s confidence in me. . . . The arts can help heal our country and be a source of pride and comfort.” As Hammond prepared for his Senate confirmation, he further articulated his vision for the Arts Endowment, “Our heritage embodies all the efforts that have gone before us, what we imbibe, and what we wish we could say but cannot put into words.” He cited the Guide to Kulchur [1938] by Ezra Pound as “a primer for American poets” that “begins with words and gestures, and finds new metaphors.” Western civilization is “a conversation,” he said, influenced by new voices and cultures. For Americans to join that conversation wisely, they must be trained in it, and so he saw his primary mission to be arts education. “We have never made a serious effort in the United States to engage our youth with the arts,” he lamented. “We can make the greatest impact on preschool children, and then move onward with technique-based, prolonged involvement with the arts. This will help formulate good taste and deepen understanding.”

Hammond compared the task before him to the moon-landing mission brought forth by President Kennedy, which took nearly a decade to accomplish. “What use is creating awareness of the arts,” Hammond asked, “if it is not a long-term, crucial task?” Hammond anticipated the agency’s Shakespeare in American Communities program, proposing that ten Shakespeare touring groups be selected for funding, “with two or three of them on the road most of the time.” He also called for a renewal of interest in representational painting and for attention to classical music on radio.

With Chairman Ivey gone and Michael Hammond not yet in place, Robert S. Martin was designated acting chairman of the Arts Endowment on October 1, 2001. While serving as acting chairman of the NEA, Martin was also director of the Institute of Museum and Library Services, a sister agency of the Arts and Humanities Endowments. Formerly, Martin had been a professor and interim director of the School of Library and Information Studies at Texas Woman’s University in Denton, Texas, and Texas State Librarian. He served until January 23, 2002, when Hammond was sworn in.

On his third day in office, Chairman Hammond called an all-agency staff meeting and spoke eloquently about art and the creative process. Those in attendance were moved by the promise of his remarks and looked forward to his inspirational tenure, but Hammond served as chairman for only seven days—from January 23 to January 29. On Tuesday, January 29, he did not report for work. Hammond had felt ill over the weekend and had gone to the hospital for a series of tests on January 28. That night he attended a gala at the Shakespeare Theatre Company with Michael Kahn, the theater’s artistic director, and Queen Noor of Jordan, followed by a performance of The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster. Hammond left the performance early and returned home in a taxicab. The next morning, when he did not show up for work, police were called to his home. There they found Michael Hammond, dead of natural causes at age 69.

[It was later confirmed that Hammond died of a hear attack. While he was at Rice University, he’d been treated for cancer.]

“There was great sadness among the staff,” Senior Deputy Chairman Eileen Mason recalled. “They had waited four months for a new chairman and were excited about the breadth of Hammond’s intellect, his passion for the arts, and his lifelong work in music education. On January 23, they had welcomed him with food and song at an all-agency reception, and had heard about his love of the arts and his vision for the agency.” Now the agency needed a new leader, and Mason assumed the post of acting chairman.

The Mason Interim

Eileen Mason came to the agency with a background in education, publishing, and governmental service. A native New Yorker, she began studying the violin in grade school, and continued her lifelong commitment to symphonic and chamber music under the tutelage of composer and conductor Karel Husa at Cornell University. With a Bachelor of Arts from Cornell, where she studied English and music, she worked as a book editor at Little, Brown in Boston, editing college textbooks in literature and the social sciences. In Washington, DC, she served as a manager at two federal energy agencies, and earned a master’s degree in public administration from American University. She became vice president for grants on the Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County, Maryland, before joining the Arts Endowment in 2001.

Mason served for 13 months as acting chairman, focusing on honoring Hammond’s memory, strengthening relations with Congress, supporting arts education, and extending access to quality arts programs in underserved communities. In April 2002 she joined members of the Congressional Arts Caucus led by Representative Louise Slaughter (D-NY) and Representative Steven Horn (R-CA) to visit 16 New York City arts organizations significantly affected by the destruction of buildings, closing of performance venues, and decrease in tourism after the attacks of 9/11. As the group, hosted by the New York State Council on the Arts, traveled from Times Square theaters to the Brooklyn Museum of Art and Brooklyn Academy of Music to El Museo del Barrio in Harlem, it was clear that the arts industry in New York was determined to rebound, but financial aid was direly needed.

During their visit to the Dance Theatre of Harlem, Artistic Director, National Medal of Arts recipient, and former National Council on the Arts member Arthur Mitchell greeted the group. Mitchell recounted how he had started with a small company years before [DTH was incorporated in 1969 and débuted in 1971], believing that every child in Harlem deserved the opportunity to learn how to dance. “If it weren’t for the National Endowment for the Arts,” he declared, “Dance Theatre of Harlem would not be here today.”

A few days later, Mason represented the NEA at a meeting of the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, with First Lady Laura Bush in attendance. Carrying forth the vision of Michael Hammond, Mason stated that the Arts Endowment’s mission “is to acquaint Americans with their rich and diverse artistic heritage.” Two initiatives she put forward anticipated things to come. First, she called for an examination of the state of classical music on nonprofit radio, which would evolve into a full-scale project of the NEA’s Office of Research and Analysis, and, second, she announced a plan to bring professional performances of Shakespeare’s plays into every corner of the country. This idea would later grow under Chairman Dana Gioia [see Chap. 10] into the major Shakespeare in American Communities initiative.

When President and Mrs. Bush presented the 2001 National Medal of Arts and the National Humanities Medals to a distinguished group of artists and scholars, emotions ran high. Only six months after the attack on the World Trade Center, a packed audience sang “The Star Spangled Banner” with reverence and new meaning. Among the Medal of Arts recipients were painter Helen Frankenthaler, film director Mike Nichols, singer Johnny Cash, novelist Rudolfo Anaya, and cellist Yo-Yo Ma. The highlight of the ceremony was Yo-Yo Ma’s cello performance, accompanied on the piano by [then-current] National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice.

In 2002, the National Endowment for the Arts, in partnership with the Appalachian Regional Commission, sponsored a regional conference to demonstrate the positive economic impact that the arts can have on local communities [Building Creative Economies: The Arts, Entrepreneurship, and Sustainable Development in Appalachia, Asheville, North Carolina; 29-30 April 2002]. More than 300 artists and arts administrators shared information about model programs and best practices. Two Republican North Carolina legislators, Congressman Charles Taylor, a member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Interior and Related Agencies, which has jurisdiction over the Arts Endowment’s budget, and Congressman Cass Ballenger, a nonvoting member of the National Council on the Arts, attended and endorsed the concept.

In July 2002, the House of Representatives voted for an amendment sponsored by Representative Louise Slaughter (D-NY) for a $10 million [$15.8 million today] budget increase for the Arts Endowment. Representative Slaughter’s amendment was supported by 191 Democrats, 42 Republicans, and one Independent. The tally indicated that momentum was slowly building in the House, as Republicans were showing signs of support for the agency. The Senate, however, voted for only a modest increase. When a final omnibus bill was passed in February 2003, with rescissions across the board for all agencies, the agency received $115.7 million [$177.8 million] for 2003—a disappointing increase of only $500,000 [$768,300].

In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon, arts organizations were facing serious shortages in the availability of private and public funding. The eighth chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, Michael Hammond, had begun his long-awaited tenure on January 23, 2002, laid out his vision for the agency, and passed away a week later. Despite the upheaval of Chairman Hammond’s death, the NEA began to receive growing support from a bipartisan coalition in Congress and established a renewed commitment to extending access to quality arts programs throughout the country.

[These two chapters have brought us close to the end of the NEA history as recorded in “National Endowment for the Arts: A History, 1965-2008.”  There’s still more to present, but Mark Bauerlein and Ellen Grantham’s chronicle only went up to 2008. 

[I promised, however, that I’d try to provide an outline at least of the years from the end of the NEA report and the present day if I can compile one.  Meanwhile, Bauerlein and Grantham have more to say and I’ll post that shortly.  Chapter 10, “Building a New Consensus,” covers the administration of Dana Gioia (b. 1950), a poet, literary critic, literary translator, and essayist, and NEA Chairman from 2003 to 2009.  That installment of “A History of the National Endowment for the Arts” will be published on ROT on Wednesday, 13 December.

[Before that, though, I’m going to interrupt the NEA history series for another piece from my friend Kirk Woodward on 8 December.

[When I heard a report back in October about the “new” Beatles song about to be released, I immediately urged Kirk, who’s a huge Beatles fan and an experienced musician and singer, to try to hear the record ASAP and write about it for the blog.  And that’s what he did . . . and the result is “‘Now and Then,’” which I’ll be posting next Friday.  The rest of the NEA series will be back after that.]