Part C: Replacing Brahms with Wayne and Underwood, or "Vox Populi, Take the Wheel"

Posted by Bruce Miller
If this is your first look at my three-part blog response to A. Barton Hinkle's Op/Ed piece, Picking Apart Arguments for Funding the Arts, published in Friday's (March 5) Times-Dispatch, you may want to scroll down and read Parts A and B first. I would provide a link to Hinkle's original dissection, but I can't locate Picking Apart ... on the Times-Dispatch website. I found the other two Op/Ed pieces that shared a page with Hinkle, but his piece isn't there, at least not as of this writing. If anyone can find it, please provide the web address in a comment. Thanks.

As he gleefully "picks apart" the statements of those of us who believe it would be unwise for Virginia to become the first state in the nation to eliminate its arts commission, as recommended by the Virginia House of Delegates, Hinkle states: "Some arts advocates also imply that the arts in Virginia will disappear without state support. There is no denying that some arts organizations will suffer and might even fold. But it is simply not true that closing the VCA would mean the end of drama, the end of symphony music, the end of gallery exhibits in the Old Dominion."

"Some with a soft spot for Brahms and Bryars, for Tallis and Telemann, may be inclined to snicker at the indulgence which confers the name of artist on the likes of Lil Wayne or Carrie Underwood. But a heart moved by pop music is moved no less because the music enjoys commercial success (all the more reason to doubt claims that shutting the VCA will leave Virginians stranded in a world bereft of uplift)."

So there it is. Hinkle is telling us that eliminating all arts funding from the state budget may bring about the demise of arts institutions that generations of Virginians have dedicated their lives to building. But so what? We'll always have pop culture. Seriously. Hinkle reassures by asserting his belief that there's no real difference between Brahms and Telemann, Lil Wayne and Carrie Underwood.

Are you scared yet?

"This touches on another difficulty," Hinkle continues, "namely the tension between artistic merit and latitudinarianism."

All right. I had to look it up too. Latitudinarianism means "holding or expressing broad or tolerant views, especially in religious matters."

In other words, in the gospel according to Hinkle (and you'll find the same in the playbook of many social conservatives), there is tension between artistic elitists (that's you and me, friends) and our pop culture brethren who express their "broad and tolerant" views by embracing rap music and American Idol.

Call me crazy, but I don't feel the tension.

I admit I'm not into rap, but some of my best friends are. I caught most episodes of Simon and Paula last season, and I've always thought Carrie Underwood was cute as a bug. The first time I heard her heartfelt rendition of Jesus Take the Wheel, it brought a tear to my eye. Seriously. I like that song a lot. As anyone will tell you, I'm as corny as Kansas in August, I cry unapologetically at Hallmark commercials, and I teach Sunday School to boot.

I also subscribe to a dogma that has been passed on to me by my parents and teachers from first grade forward. It's a firm belief, a way of living that I'm also trying to pass on to my own children. And that's where Hinkle nails me.

The dogma says this. There is a unique value to great art. Contemporary society has the wonderful opportunity (obligation?) to benefit from and enjoy the classic works of Beethoven, Rostand, Petipa and Benoist, as well as more contemporary masters like Bartók, Nottage, Bausch and Bearden. It is only through the preservation and presentation of great art from the past that we can truly discover, develop, celebrate and pass on to our children the great artists of our present.

The noble work of the nonprofit arts sector is not to dwell on or live in the past, but it is to offer and entertain new perspectives on great work, should that work be a product of the previous week or the previous century. If we don't, if we as a society rely solely on the more accessible delights of the popular and commercial, we will be failing our responsibility to our children and our heritage, to history and world culture.

That brings us to the core of the ideological argument.

"The demand by the anointed for continued favoritism," Hinkle proffers, "is not necessarily ennobled just because it is dolled up in gauzy sentiment." In other words, I can write these blogs till I'm blue in the face, but it doesn't matter. We can dress up our art all we want, friends, but we can't take it out to dinner.

And when we do dare to ask, plead for, demand our seat at the table, Hinkle suggests, the populists who think that Lil Wayne is all that and a bag of chips have every good reason to drive us back into our ivory towers and cut off the funding that allows us to survive.

A. Barton Hinkle is entitled to his opinion. So am I. It's time to take sides. Which side are you on?

During this statewide debate that will probably last the rest of my lifetime, if we allow ourselves to be overcome by fatique, fear or frustration, and throw our hands up and off the wheel, who's going to drive?

I leave you with the immortal words of one of Lil Wayne's biggest hits. Well, at least all the words up to the part where he begins using words I can't print on a family-friendly blog.

I said he's so sweet
Make her wanna lick the rapper
So I let her lick the rapper

Shawty said l-l-lick like a lollipop
She said l-l-lick like a lollipop
Shawty said l-l-lick like a lollipop
She said like a lollipop

Shawty wanna thug
Bottles in the club
Shawty wanna hump
And oh I like to touch ya lovely lady lumps
She wanna lick the rapper

--Bruce Miller

Photo Subjects (top to bottom): Carrie Underwood, Ludwig van Beethoven, Edmund Rostand, Marius Petipa, Marie-Guillemine Benoist, Bela Bartok, Lynn Nottage, Pina Bausch, Romare Bearden, Lil Wayne

Part B: Rolls-Royce and “a Medicaid Patient’s Physical Agony"

Posted by Bruce Miller
After trying to compare, illogically, the arts to scouts, grocery stores, newspapers and places of worship in yesterday's Times-Dispatch (see my previous post, Taking On Those Who Buy Ink by the Barrel - Part A), A. Barton Hinkle moves on to pick apart the argument offered by those who believe that arts funding should stay in the state budget because of the jobs that such funding makes possible.

"Any entity that employs people provides jobs by definition," Hinkle states, "and might be said to contribute to the economic vitality of a community. If that is the standard upon which we justify state funding, then there is very little in the commonwealth that would not qualify."

This argument is gratuitous, and Hinkle knows it. He fails to mention the tens of millions that the state spends each year to create jobs in Virginia and to support the creation and sustenance of small businesses. He asks his readers to compare the nonprofit arts industry to Virginia's thriving for-profit businesses, rather than to the new and/or struggling businesses that receive state support, or the libraries and parks that are the more appropriate comparison.

Here's one specific example. Rolls-Royce is certainly a thriving for-profit business. Yet they successfully made the argument to the Virginia legislature that they needed state support if they were to build a new aircraft engine production plant in Prince George County, about 25 miles southwest of Richmond. In fact, the commonwealth put together a $56.8 million incentive package to lure Rolls-Royce to our state, and no arts-eliminator even suggests that a penny of that package be cut from this year's budget.

For the record, I think the legislature was wise to negotiate this funding, and is wise to keep it in tact. Economic development is vitally important. As Hugh Keogh, CEO of the Virginia Chamber of Commerce told the Times-Dispatch, "If you're going to play in the big leagues, you're going to have to come to the field with more than your glove. Virginia has learned that over the past 15 years."

But if you're pro-economic development, and what reasonable person isn't, how can you scoff at spending a measly $4.4 million to support the 20,000 jobs made possible by the Virginia Commission for the Arts, and still embrace the spending of $56.8 million to support the 140 jobs that Rolls-Royce has promised?

In today's competitive environment, it's sound policy and practice to offer incentives to lure successful businesses to Virginia. If Virginia didn't do it, we'd lose employers to other neighboring states. Rolls-Royce plans to begin hiring 140 workers in the fourth quarter of 2010, but they hope to build their eventual work force to 500 Virginians. Why exactly does Hinkle think the 140 to 500 Rolls-Royce jobs matter, and the 20,000 VCA-enabled jobs don't?

Perhaps he is uninformed. Perhaps he hasn't interviewed any arts leaders, and so he has no idea that our leading arts organizations are routinely wooed by other states that would be all too happy were we to relocate our jobs to their jurisdictions.

Consider this one example. Theatre IV tours nationally to about 32 states each year. This tour generates just over $1 million in out-of-state sponsor fees that come back to Virginia. This revenue is spent by our nonprofit company to pay Virginia salaries and rents, and to buy Virginia goods and services. The Maryland Arts Council has on several occasions mentioned that they would like for Theatre IV to consider relocating its national tour to their state. As incentive, Maryland and its localities contribute to nonprofit arts organizations approximately 15% of each nonprofit's documented revenue. Were we to move our HQ to Maryland, our $1 million in national tour revenue would likely be matched by $150,000 in state and local funds. In Virginia, our national tour revenue is matched by zero dollars in state and local support.

Theatre IV has no desire to move to Maryland. Make no mistake, our HOME is here. But if the Virginia Commission for the Arts is eliminated, costing Theatre IV the approximately $95,000 that we now receive from the VCA in support of the touring instructional programs we present in about 600 Virginia schools each year, we would be idiots not to consider the viability of a move north. With his disregard for Virginia arts jobs, Hinkle may not care. But I suspect there are plenty of other Virginians who would consider the loss of the nation's second largest children's theatre to be a devastating consequence of ill-advised legislation.

Hinkle continues with the manipulative and deplorable tactic of comparing arts funding to the help needed by "a Medicaid patient's physical agony" and "a teenager with severe psychiatric problems (who) can no longer lead a semi-normal life because (the state) has chosen to fund a ballet instead?"

Friends, there is not a single artist I know who is arguing that the arts are more important than health care or mental health. Hinkle and his buddies are making up this hogwash. We cannot let the ideologues fabricate OUR side of the debate and then put it out there in the press as if we actually said it. It may be their intention to make us look self-serving and ridiculous, but we shouldn't sit quietly by and let them do it.

The point is not that anyone believes the arts are more important than helping those in need. The point is that cutting VCA funding will hurt the state budget, not help it. As I've said before, if you want more money to support the worthy causes that the state is honor-bound to fund, then argue in favor of funding the VCA. It's an economic development argument, not a matter of either / or.

The case we are making for state funding is sound. Please read my previous blog post, The REAL Case for the Arts in VA (Feb. 25, 2010). When these arguments are not taken seriously, and preposterous arguments are put in their place, the debate is no longer worthy of respect. It is politics, pure and simple.

Coming tomorrow – Part C: Replacing Brahms with Wayne and Underwood, or "Vox Populi, Take the Wheel"

--Bruce Miller

Taking on Those Who Buy Ink by the Barrel - Part A

Posted by Bruce Miller
A. Barton Hinkle's Op/Ed piece in this morning's Times-Dispatch (Picking Apart Arguments for Funding the Arts) is a classic example of how ideology can trump rational thought and respectful debate. I often hold Mr. Hinkle's editorial writing in high regard because he usually builds his arguments on facts. In this case, as he joins the chorus seeking to eliminate the Virginia Commission for the Arts (VCA), he is either unaware of the facts or he chooses to ignore them.

I appreciate his mentioning that my friend Phil Whiteway "scores a nice point when he notes that politicians are quite happy to trot out the arts ... when trying to court Fortune 500 companies," although Phil's comments were more respectful and serious than A. Barton's condensation.

But Hinkle goes on to say "stripped of the rhetorical filigrees at which the arts community is so adept, the plea reduces to: The arts are nice and do good, so they should get taxpayer support." He misrepresents the position of most arts supporters in an attempt to paint us as frivolous and flighty.

Certainly there are a few in the arts community who have been focusing their defense of the VCA on the intrinsic values of arts in society, and that is their right. But many if not most of us have been saying that the main reasons to keep the VCA in the Virginia budget have to do with economic development, education and tourism. Hinkle, like his ideological cronies, deliberately avoids these more conservative arguments.
Hinkle compares the arts to the "Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts," "health-food stores," "newspapers," and "churches, synagogues and mosques," stating that they also are “nice and do good.” He then reasons, if these nice organizations receive no state funding, why should the arts?

The answers are simple, so it is hard to understand why Hinkle even poses the question.

The Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, both of which I support, are membership organizations that admit some and fail to admit others. Fundamentally, they exist to meet the needs of their members. Unlike nonprofit arts organizations, their programs are not open to everyone and they do not exist solely to serve the public good.

Now, if someone wants to argue that not all nonprofit arts organizations put the public good front and center, I'll agree with them in that argument, and together we can go after those slackers. But that has nothing to do with the industry as a whole.

Looking at health-food stores and newspapers, both of which I support, anyone among us can point to entrepreneurs who have made their fortunes owning and operating such businesses. That business model exists in abundance. Nonprofit arts organizations are not owned by anyone. They belong to the public, just like libraries and parks.

I co-founded Theatre IV 35 years ago, but I don't own it. When I retire, there's nothing for me to sell and no financial rewards for me to reap. We can all name grocery and newspaper magnets who have made tens of millions and more, but I challenge anyone to point out to me a person of any wealth whose fortunes came from founding a nonprofit arts organization. Such a person and such a business model simply do not exist.

Considering churches, synagogues and mosques, all of which I support, they are religious organizations. They admit members who share a common religious belief. Fundamentally, they exist to exalt the particular religious belief that is shared by their members, and to serve the community in the name of their God. And God bless them for it. But the reality is this. They have existed for centuries in the United States without public support.

Conversely, there are virtually no thriving nonprofit arts organizations that now exist or have ever existed in our nation without public support from their state government. You will be able to find a few unfunded nonprofit theatres, orchestras, dance companies and visual arts organizations, but it will be impossible to find any that maintain professional standards and thrive without state support.

I'm not speaking only of Virginia. Hinkle fails to mention that if Virginia were to eliminate its arts commission, it would be the first state in the union to do so. Are all the other states just stupid, or might it be that they understand sound financial arguments that the ideologues of Virginia simply choose to ignore?

Coming tomorrow – Part B: Rolls Royce and “a Medicaid Patient’s Physical Agony”

--Bruce Miller

Mayoral Candidates Weigh in on the Arts

Posted by Bruce Miller
Phil Whiteway, Tony Foley, Jeanie Rule, Janine Serresseque, Brad Tuggle and I (all staff members at Barksdale Theatre and Theatre IV) attended Tuesday night’s second Mayoral Forum, hosted at the Virginia Historical Society by Style Weekly and the League of Women Voters. Jason Roop, Editor of Style, did a great job as Moderator. Brandon Reynolds from Style, Sandra Jones from WTVR-TV Channel 6, and Michael Paul Williams from the Richmond T-D ably assisted as panelists, asking their own questions of the candidates and vetting questions from the audience.

The theme of the debate was Education and the Cultural Landscape, so lots of arts and culture professionals turned out. The five candidates (Paul Goldman, Robert J. Grey Jr., Dwight C. Jones, William J. “Bill” Pantele, and Lawrence E. Williams Sr.) all presented themselves well. But none of them seemed to have a real handle on the arts and cultural issues facing our city.

In an effort towards full disclosure, I mention that Robert Grey is a former Board member of Theatre IV, and he noted this credential during the debate. I appreciated the mention.

There was no mention from any candidate, however, of the large arts funding disparity that exists between Richmond and Norfolk, where the mayor has been a true champion of arts and cultural organizations, with significant success. There was talk from the candidates about Richmond being the cultural capital of the region, but it sounded more like well intentioned but uninformed cheer leading than anything else.

Most objective observers believe that Norfolk eclipsed Richmond as the “cultural capital” several years ago, and now functions as the arts flagship of Virginia. The five major things that will help Richmond catch up and re-establish its preeminence would be:
* a committed and vocal mayor,
* a committed and vocal business leader,
* an appropriately functioning Arts Council,
* an effective cultural plan (progress may be on the way on these last two fronts), and
* about an extra million per year in local public funding.

No candidate seemed to be aware of these issues. But then again, the panelists also seemed somewhat uninformed, and failed to ask the candidates to address any of the above.

There was only one real gaffe that I noticed, and it occurred when Jason Roop asked each candidate to name an arts event that had taken place in Richmond during the last five years that had particularly impressed him. Roop exempted last weekend’s Folk Festival, since that event had been so prominently featured in recent media coverage.

A couple candidates talked about First Fridays without mentioning any specific arts component. It was as if they’d heard about or perhaps experienced First Fridays as a festival designed to draw crowds to Broad Street, but they hadn’t actually connected with the art. A couple candidates mentioned public art in general, without discussing any specific work beyond "the fish project." Basically, all five candidates seemed a little stumped, unable to recall and describe a single performance or arts experience that had truly captured their imagination.

The gaffe occurred when Dwight Jones said, “The theatre at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts makes it onto my calendar every year.” He was referring, of course, to TheatreVirginia. As you know, TheatreVirginia went out-of-business mid-season in 2002, drawing significant media coverage. However, Jones otherwise presented himself well.

Another regrettable comment—the word “regrettable” obviously reflects my subjective perspective—was when Robert Grey said that we all needed to be proud of “our major organizations—the Symphony, the Opera, the Ballet, and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.”

I certainly agree with that sentiment, but I regret that the word "theatre" was not included. Working in a permanent alliance with Theatre IV, Barksdale is somewhat larger in terms of annual budget, and significantly larger in terms of annual ticket sales, than either the Richmond Symphony, the Richmond presence of the Virginia Opera, or the Richmond Ballet. And yet, as is so often the case, no theatre was mentioned among the “major organizations.”

Again, otherwise, Grey presented himself well. He spoke of having appeared in a production of Women of Manhattan at the Firehouse, and mentioned his Board service not only at Theatre IV but also at the Richmond Ballet.

Clearly, those of us who care about theatre need to keep working hard to inform our mayoral candidates and all other community leaders that our art form is indeed a vital part of the mix. Barksdale/Theatre IV has an annual operating budget of $5.2 million, and enjoys annual Richmond attendance of over 82,000. Also, we tour extensively to schools throughout Virginia and 32 other states. Until everyone understands the impact that Barksdale/Theatre IV has on our community, the historical funding gap that continues to exist between Barksdale/Theatre IV and Richmond’s other major arts organizations will continue unchanged and unchallenged.

If you are a Richmond resident, be sure to vote in the upcoming mayoral elections. The candidates are good and capable men. I hope and believe that our next mayor will offer a step forward for our city.

--Bruce Miller

(Photos: The candidates pictured are: [top to bottom] Robert Grey, Dwight Jones, Bill Pantele, Lawrence Williams, and Paul Goldman.)

Snow White Takes Up Powerlifting

Posted by Bruce Miller
As I was making breakfast for Curt at 6:10 am this morning, Terrie walked into the kitchen after having picked up the paper at the end of our driveway. “Donna Deekens is going to be on Wife Swap,” she informed me. I dropped the spatula.

I’d never seen the TV show with this provocative name, but I’d heard of it. In my imaginings it conjured up images of Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice.

For those not old enough to remember this quadrupley-ampersanded title, B&C&T&A was an iconic late 60s film (which I loved, by the way) about wife swapping, swinging, open marriage, free love, quad, polyamory, partnertausch … the morals of some of what we considered in the late 60s may have been pathetic, but the vocabulary was expansive.

Anyway, until this morning, I’d never expected to hear the words “Donna Deekens” and “wife swap” in the same sentence.

Donna Deekens is a longstanding friend of mine. She, Phil and Donna Whiteway, and I were theatre majors together at the University of Richmond. Donna Deekens (Donna Strother in those bygone days of yore) played Bianca in Kiss Me Kate during her freshman year (my sophomore), and I was one of her Tom, Dick or Harry suitors.

After graduation, Donna spent 20 years playing the Snow Queen during the Saturday afternoon Santa Teas at the Miller & Rhoads Tea Room in downtown Richmond. It was all about singing White Christmas and wearing long white gloves. Phil and I spent those same 20 years producing the rest of the entertainment for the Santa Teas.

(I also hosted the weekly Santa Breakfasts for 20 years at Thalhimers in The Richmond Room. I’m still stopped on the street every now and then and asked if I’m not Snow Bear’s Friend.)

Anyway, good times.

But despite the hint of naughtiness that prompted her casting as Bianca, Donna Deekens has always been the flesh and blood incarnation of Snow White. “Donna Deekens” … “driven snow.” That works for me. “Donna Deekens” … “wife swap.” Not so much.

Quoting from this morning’s Times-Dispatch, here’s a more accurate description of Donna’s Wife Swap-ing experience:

“A Midlothian woman switched families for a week, and tonight, America gets to watch. Donna Deekens, who runs a tea party business, traded places with a tattooed female powerlifter from New York for an episode of ABC’s Wife Swap. The hourlong show airs tonight at 8, locally on WRIC-Channel 8.

‘Contrast is what they’re looking for,’ Deekens said of the show’s producers, ‘and they got it with this one.’ She described the experience as ‘a wild ride … quite an adventure.’

It was an adventure she did not seek. The show’s producers contacted Deekens, having found her Web site—www.virginiateaparties.com—and apparently felt they could build a show around someone who runs a company called Teapots, Treats & Traditions. Deekens puts on tea parties, primarily for children, and along with cups of tea and dainty sandwiches serves helpings of manners, etiquette and social graces.

She and her husband, Bill, a mortgage banker, had not seen Wife Swap until they were invited to apply to participate. ‘It was something kind of scary, and something kind of exciting,’ said Deekens, the mother of two sons. ‘We look at it as trying something completely different. I always think it’s a good thing to learn from other people.’

In this cast, the other people were the McCaslins from Tribes Hill, N.Y., who live in an old elementary school and one-time mental hospital they’ve converted into a powerlifting gym. Their business is called Iron Asylum Gym.

Sandi McCaslin, who can lift more that 300 pounds and has a tattoo on her leg that reads, “Whatever It Takes,” spent more than a week in the Deekens’ suburban Midlothian home setting up tea parties. Meantime, Donna Deekens was in New York, learning all about the gym business and trying to persuade the McCaslins’ two powerlifting daughters to become more feminine.”

Hmmm. All I can say is, time to fire up the TiVo! This is one reality show I don’t want to miss.

As for my friend Donna Deekens, I think she’s great and I can’t wait to see her take this on. Donna is a talented actress and singer, by the way, and a great mom. I’m sure a fun (and wholesome) time will be had by all.

After this night of TV, I look forward to seeing you at the theatre!

--Bruce Miller

(Note: All photos feature Donna and come from her tea party website.)

Standing Up for the VCA

Posted by Bruce Miller
This morning's Times-Dispatch contains a regrettable editorial. At the top of the column on the left of the Editorial Page, under the heading "State Budget - Hard Times," the scribes at the T-D outline Virginia's currently woeful budget projections (a direct effect of our nation's recession). In response to these financial challenges, the editors write:

"Spending cuts are problematic: Much of the (Virginia) budget is driven by mandates and necessity. But there are agencies whose functions are not crucial to the commonwealth. Some possibilities:

--The Virginia Tourism Authority;
--The Virginia Economic Development Partnership;
--The Virginia Department of Business Assistance;
--The Virginia Department of Minority Business Enterprise;
--The Virginia Commission for the Arts;
--The Virginia Cooperative Extension and Agricultural Experiment Station;
--Assorted museums."

I'll let others speak for the agencies they know about. I cannot fail to step forward for the Virginia Commission for the Arts. I know first hand how well this agency is managed, and what vital and essential support it provides to all the nonprofit arts organizations in Virginia.

What frustrates me the most is that these misguided words from the editors of the T-D come after a year in which all of Virginia's Non-State Agency Funding was eliminated entirely. Non-State Agency Funding is the political pork that was traditionally awarded to arts organizations and other nonprofits above and beyond the objective funding of the VCA. Eliminating Non-State Agency Funding reduced total arts support in Virginia by hundreds of thousands of dollars. (Barksdale and Theatre IV received a total of $45,000 in Non-State Agency funding in 2006-07, and $0 from the same pot in 2007-08.)

Cuts of this size are devastating, even for a nonprofit organization of our size. It's not like we have $45,000 sitting around unused. Exacting additional cuts to our and other's VCA funding seems unthinkable to me. I believe it would be exceedingly reckless--perhaps even life-threatening to many nonprofit organizations.

Currently Barksdale and Theatre IV each receive $112,500 annually from the Virginia Commission for the Arts, representing about 2.5% of our overall budgets. Our two nonprofit organizations currently receive $44,455 from the Greater Richmond Consortium, which allocates support from the localities of Richmond, Chesterfield, Henrico and Hanover, representing considerably less than one percent of our overall budgets.

For the sake of comparison, let's look at our neighboring state of Maryland. In the Old Line State, major nonprofit arts organizations expect to receive approximately 7.5% of their budget from the state, and an additional 7.5% of their budget from local governments. If Barksdale and Theatre IV were located in the Baltimore area instead of in Richmond, our public funding would equal approximately $750,000 per year, or roughly $480,000 more that we currently receive in public funding from the Greater Richmond localities and the state of Virginia.

All the other nonprofit theatres in town fare worse than we do in terms of actual dollars received in public support, but, in most cases, better than we do in terms of the percentage of their budget that is covered by public funds.

One of my favorite Theatre IV Board members, Phyllis Galanti, has an email address that begins with "NoWhining." I'm ashamed to admit that I can be an inveterate whiner, and so I keep Phyllis's email address hanging above my desk, just to remind me to keep a stiff, and frequently buttoned, upper lip.

But I believe that editorials like the one that appeared this morning do the public an injustice by suggesting that the activities of the Virginia Commission for the Arts, and, by extension, the work of all of Virginia's artists, are not "crucial" to the people of Virginia. Trying not to whine, but nonetheless determined to present forthrightly the facts of the matter, I've written the following Letter to the Editor. The letter may or may not make it into the venerable T-D, but I think it's important for all of us who love the arts to know the facts and fight for the survival of essential, objective arts funding in the Virginia budget.

Editor, Times-Dispatch:

Like you, I believe Virginia’s “hard times require hard choices.” They also require informed thinking. In your discussion of possible budget cuts, you list the Virginia Commission for the Arts as an agency “whose functions are not crucial to the commonwealth.” I disagree. For the people of Virginia, the VCA is not only crucial, it’s a conservative investment.

The Virginia taxpayer contributes only 81 cents per capita to the VCA, making Virginia 33rd in the nation in terms of state arts appropriations. This taxpayer support earns for our state $719,000 in matching funds from the National Endowment for the Arts. With these limited resources, the VCA provided essential funding in 2007-08 to 743 grantees, sustaining over 500 nonprofit arts groups and bringing arts education to 3.3 million Virginia students. In 2000, an independent study found that the economic impact of the arts in Virginia exceeded $1 billion per year.

Not everyone enjoys theater, music, dance, the visual and/or literary arts. But those who don’t appreciate the value of the arts must not be doing the math. The arts build community. They also attract major corporations to Virginia; provide thousands of jobs; make possible Virginia’s principal child sexual abuse prevention effort; bring free-of-charge smiles to legions of Alzheimer’s patients; enhance the instruction of science, math, English and social studies in our schools; and infuse the Virginia economy with millions of dollars from out-of-state touring.

Because of historically low funding, Virginia’s arts industry has been in a precarious state for decades. Like parks and libraries, arts organizations are irreplaceable threads in the fabric of a healthy commonwealth. Cutting funding for the VCA would not help balance Virginia’s budget. It would decrease overall revenues and make Virginia’s financial challenges even worse.

Bruce Miller
Artistic Director, Theatre IV and Barksdale Theatre

I hope all of you will join me in standing up for the Virginia Commission for the Arts. I'm not engaging in hyperbole when I say that, should the state decide to make additional cuts to the VCA, many nonprofit organizations, including Barksdale Theatre and Theatre IV, would find it difficult to survive.

--Bruce Miller