What follows are my notes and thoughts.
A solid conversation with a heavy focus on the theater, which was somewhat disappointing. But if you get Anna Devere Smith as a moderator a conversation, it’s going to have theater firmly situated in it. However, it felt like a missed opportunity to bring other areas of the arts into this funding question. In truth, we all might’ve been better served if the session had been called The Case for Funding Theater.
Jason Farago of the NY Times started off by summarizing his article that outlined the steps that the Biden administration could take to craft an arts stimulus package, which include unemployment and insurance relief, as well as improvements to the tax code that will impact all aspects of the arts & culture workers. He also makes the case that there is a role for direct Federal employment such as took place during the 1930s as both the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and Federal Project Number One. This latter program included the Federal Writers Project (which gave us the Slave Narratives), the Federal Theater Project, the Federal Music Project and the Federal Art Project. There’s precedent for this kind of support for the arts.
Playwright Jeremy Harris (Slave Play) made the explicit point about the urgency of the moment, saying that “a loss of a season or two [of theater] is the beginning of the end of some people’s careers.” Literally, playwrights and directors who are at the beginnings of their careers are likely to leave the field if they can’t support themselves and their families because there’s no work.
Harris is also concerned about what he sees as the failure of institutions in their inability to imagine that this might be a moment of radical transformation of the industry. Where are the new processes and practices that would enable the most vibrant group of artists to be able to maintain and be supported and ready when theater eventually comes back? He doesn’t believe that’s going to be the outcome if all the money is given to large, established institutions.
He put his extra money into smaller projects and wonders why established institutions didn’t do this. Anna responds: “Because individuals are nimble. Institutions can’t move that quickly.”
Interestingly, he says he didn’t sign the We See You, White American Theater list of demands because he thought the list of demands indicated too heavy an investment in existing institutions. That seems selfish. I’m a believer in reform and change happening within existing structures as well as bubbling up from outside of these institutions. What would it have cost him to support all those Black folks who are demanding equity? On one hand, I remember a similar feeling when I was younger that I’d create something outside “the system” since there didn’t seem like there was a place for me at that table. I get it. But Harris has exactly that kind of access due to the success of his problematic Broadway debut.
Nataki Garrett, the executive director of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, notes the need for real conversations and change towards full equity and inclusion. As such, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival is adopting the the We See You, WAT as guidelines. Her belief is that “we can’t bring theater back without addressing equity or dismantling white supremacy.”
Kate Levin of Bloomberg Philanthropies notes the shift that has taken place over the last decade. During the recession of 2008, members of Congress didn’t look at the arts as “real” work. Due to the increased advocacy efforts by the sector on its own behalf, that perception has shifted. The result was the arts provisions, including Save Our Stages, in the recently passed Cares Act.
Watch the 30-minute panel discussion here:
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