Inviting Conservatives to the Arts Advocacy Table

Posted by Bruce Miller
I had a lively and informative conversation this afternoon with a conservative Republican party delegate who also happens to be an arts supporter. I have always believed that, on principle, funding Virginia's nonprofit arts organizations should be on the conservative agenda. It was wonderful to have a full-bodied discussion with a Republican who agrees.

The Commonwealth's nonprofit arts organizations are all about conserving appreciation for and presentation of art forms that have been around for generations. If this conservation ceases to take place, the great art experiences that so enriched the lives of our parents, grandparents and great grandparents will be all but lost to modern temptations such as bar hopping, video gaming, the Internet, and social media. Nonprofit arts organizations conserve the arts in the same way that parks conserve nature and libraries conserve literature. Doesn't everyone want to keep these great resources alive for our children and grandchildren?

The Commonwealth's nonprofit arts organizations are a vital engine of economic development and sound fiscal planning. Healthy and accomplished arts organizations lure major employers to relocate to Virginia cities. Nonprofit arts organizations themselves, like all small businesses, generate thousands of jobs, thereby boosting the economy. In fact, nonprofit arts organizations tend to be uniquely labor intensive. We've yet to reach the point where robots paint our pictures, dance in our ballets, play in our symphonies, sing in our operas, or act in our theatres. We are not a mechanized industry; we're a people industry--the best kind to have in a flagging economy.

Unique among most businesses (small or otherwise), the Commonwealth's nonprofit arts organizations are integrally tied to education. Many if not most perform in schools, welcome students into exhibits and performances, and, when involving students in performance or production, teach the 21 Century workforce skills that are so in demand: creative problem solving, teamwork, critical thinking, etc.

The Commonwealth's nonprofit arts organizations bring money from out of state into Virginia. Much like the film industry, for which Gov McDonnell sought and won increased funding, our nonprofit arts industry has an overall economic impact that greatly exceeds that of most small businesses. We attract audiences from neighboring states into Virginia to see our exhibits and performances. We develop artistic products in state, spending millions in labor and production expenses, and then pay back that investment by touring the programs to paying audiences living throughout the nation.

My new conservative Republican friend could not have agreed more with each of these points. Together, we are going to be assembling a small committee of like-minded conservatives to meet one evening at Barksdale to develop a list of talking points that will encourage other conservatives to begin to appreciate the common sense importance of public support for the arts. In a second meeting, we're going to invite the chairs of various local Republican committees to discuss the issue with us, and allow us to speak to their memberships at their monthly meetings.

If you or anyone you know is a conservative, politically active Republican who understands the value of public support of the nonprofit arts, please get in touch with me. We would LOVE to have you join us in our effort to find common ground between Republicans and Democrats, arts supporters and arts novices, all of whom want the same thing--an economically healthy, educationally vibrant Virginia--ready to meet the challenges and opportunities of this no longer new 21st Century.

--Bruce Miller

Labor Day - A Time to Celebrate Jobs in the Arts

Posted by Bruce Miller
Today, Barksdale and Theatre IV employ 30 arts professionals working in full-time jobs. We employed 39 full time workers just over three years ago. We’ve had to reduce and reorganize staff due to financial pressures associated with the national recession--particularly cuts in funding to the Virginia Commission for the Arts.

Thirty seems like a lot of people, and it is. But when you consider all we do (33 different productions, many of them touring throughout Virginia and 32 surrounding states, plus all the ancillary activities), we’re significantly understaffed. Several of our current staff members are carrying the responsibilities of one and a half or two different jobs. Most of our staffers log 50 hours a week, and several routinely exceed 80 hours a week.

In addition to these 30 full-time positions, we employ:
• seven or eight box office and costume shop workers who are paid on an hourly basis,
• four talented interns who work seasonally for weekly stipends,
• a master scenic artist who currently is contracted semester by semester,
• approximately 22 touring actors who keep Theatre IV’s national tour going strong, and
• legions of freelance actors, directors, designers etc whose talents power our mainstage productions.

One full-time staff position is being kept open for a past staff member who is still in recovery from a major illness.

We also budget approximately $20,000 per year for hourly production overhire.

All told, Barksdale and Theatre IV currently invest $1.9 million annually in Virginia’s workforce. If that doesn’t seem like a lot to you, then you’re not one of the ones losing sleep every two weeks worrying about how we’re going to meet payroll. There’s no grand fund set aside somewhere to cover these and other expenses. We pay out only what we bring in. To meet budget, we need to sell approximately $70,000 per week in tickets and tour shows, and raise approximately $30,000 per week in contributions. During this recession, meeting these goals has been, and will continue to be, very challenging.

That's why I vigorously support continued state funding for the Virginia Commission for the Arts. Last year, the House initially voted to do away with the VCA entirely, a move that would have put many if not most of Virginia's arts organizations out of business. Thankfully, wiser heads prevailed, and the Commission was saved, with funding significantly reduced. The funds that Barksdale and Theatre IV are receiving this summer from the VCA are $40,000 less now than they were two years ago.

The arts are a labor intensive industry, which is good for Virginians and the state economy. On average, Virginia’s arts and cultural organizations spend 44.2% of their revenues on labor, 37.2% on other production expenses, 9.8% on facilities, 7.4% on marketing, and 1.4% on state and local taxes and fees. This is a nonprofit industry.

In 2000, Virginians for the Arts, our statewide advocacy group, did an economic impact study in cooperation with the Virginia Commission for the Arts and the Virginia Association of Museums. The study was prepared independently by The Wessex Group, Ltd., located in Williamsburg. The findings of the study indicate that a decade ago, arts and cultural organizations comprised a major sector of the Virginia economy.

In 2000, 12,507 Virginians were directly employed by arts and cultural organizations (full-time and part-time). They were paid $157.8 million in salary and benefits. An additional 6,344 full-time Virginia jobs were financed indirectly by the economic impact that arts and cultural organizations have on Virginia’s support businesses and independent contractors. All told, in 2000, $306.6 million was paid to 18,851 Virginia workers by Virginia’s arts and cultural organizations.

Additionally, the 2000 study found that arts and cultural organizations in Virginia annually generate $849 million in revenues for Virginia businesses and $342 million in revenues for Virginia tourism businesses through spending by out-of-state visitors who come to see Virginia’s arts and cultural organizations. That’s a total injection into the Virginia economy of nearly $1.2 billion.

I know, it’s a lot of numbers, and they’re eight years out of date. But they’re important. If we don’t celebrate employment in the arts, nobody will. Many of those who make decisions about state funding simply don’t care about the intrinsic value of the arts, but they might care—they ought to care—about how the arts positively impact Virginia’s economy.

Fiscal conservatives routinely herald "small businesses" as the engine that creates jobs and drives the American economy. And rightly so. Why they fail to include nonprofit arts organizations among the ranks of small businesses is beyond me. The thousands of jobs that we, as an industry, generate each year in Virginia are just as real, just as vital as any other jobs.

We who work in or care about the nonprofit arts sector need to make sure that Virginia's arts jobs are recognized. We need to remember that Labor Day not only marks the closing of our neighborhood pools, plus the beginning of the Virginia public school year and the NFL and NCAA football seasons, it also represents our chance to remind all Virginians that the nonprofit arts sector and its tens of thousands of jobs represent an irreplaceable force in the state economy. The arts are not a frill or a nicety. We are a cornerstone industry, crucial to the Commonwealth and its financial well-being.

--Bruce Miller

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

Legislators Propose Elimination of Arts Funding

Posted by Bruce Miller
I'm absolutely heartsick about today's news from the House Appropriations Committee. Here's a letter I've written to the T-D. I have no idea if it will run, so I'm printing it again here. PLEASE fax or call your legislators ASAP. Legislator contact information can be found on the web at http://legis.virginia.gov/1_cit_guide/contacting_my.html.

Editor - Times-Dispatch:

The House Appropriations Committee is proposing the elimination of the Virginia Commission for the Arts. I have been the artistic director of Theatre IV, The Children's Theatre of Virginia, for the last 35 years. In an effort to create significant cost efficiencies, the staff of Theatre IV also has managed Barksdale Theatre for the last 8 1/2 years.

As a nonprofit administrator, I have always been trained to speak publicly only of success. With regard to this new proposal, it would be irresponsible for me to pretend optimism when I know first-hand the certain disaster that will follow the passage of such misguided legislation.

Every day, Theatre IV and Barksdale, two of our state's most exemplary nonprofits, deal with the fact that Virginia historically and consistently funds the arts at a level lower than any state in our region. We continue to serve over 600,000 Virginians annually, despite the fact that the legislature eliminated direct funding of arts organizations four years ago, and over the last two years has already reduced indirect funding (through the Virginia Commission for the Arts) by 30%.

In the last 16 months, Theatre IV and Barksdale have eliminated 6 positions and have plans to eliminate 2 more (20% of our lean work force). We have reduced salaries by up to 17%, cancelled company contributions to retirement plans, and increased the percentage of health insurance premiums that must be paid by the employee. To adjust to the eliminated positions, many on our staff work 80-hour work weeks just to keep our nonprofit companies alive.

The elimination of state funding to the Virginia Commission for the Arts will cost Theatre IV and Barksdale Theatre an additional $190,000 per year. That will mean the elimination of seven more jobs. Despite all our best efforts, we will not be able to operate under these conditions.

What the House Appropriations Committee is proposing is the elimination of the nonprofit arts infrastructure that tens of thousands of hard-working Virginians have taken decades to build. Hundreds of jobs will be lost. The economic repercussions will not be positive; they will be disastrous.

To avoid causing lasting harm to economic development, education, tourism and quality of life, please ask your legislators to oppose the current proposal of the House Appropriations Committee.

Sincerely,
Bruce Miller
Artistic Director, Theatre IV and Barksdale Theatre

Mixing with the Majors

Posted by Bruce Miller
Twenty-one nonprofit arts organizations with annual operating budgets in excess of $1,000,000 currently receive funding from the Virginia Commission for the Arts. These 21 organizations are referred to by the VCA as "the majors." They are invited to come together twice a year for roundtable discussions concerning the events, policies and practices that most effect the arts industry in Virginia.

In Central Virginia, the majors include Barksdale Theatre, the Richmond Ballet, the Richmond Symphony, Theatre IV, the Visual Arts Center of Richmond, and the Virginia Opera, which is headquartered in Norfolk but has a strong Richmond presence.

The first of the two annual roundtable discussions takes place each year in January in Richmond in association with the annual ArtWorks for Virginia Conference and Arts Advocacy Day at the State Capitol. I was asked by Peggy Baggett, our extraordinary Executive Director of the Virginia Commission for the Arts, to moderate this year's January meeting.

This past Thursday, from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., it was my privilege to facilitate a healthy, robust conversation among a roomful of the Virginia arts administrators whom I most admire. The last time I was asked to moderate was May 2007.

It's very energizing and great fun to direct and structure a spirited debate involving the likes of David Fisk (Executive Director of the Richmond Symphony), Gus Stuhlreyer (General Director and CEO of the Virginia Opera), Keith Martin (Managing Director, Richmond Ballet), Keith Stava (Managing Director, Virginia Stage Company), Evalyn Baron (Director of Outreach, Barter Theatre), Jo Kennedy (President and CEO, Visual Arts Center of Richmond), Rob Cross (Executive and Artistic Director, Virginia Arts Festival), Bill Hennessy (Director, Chrystler Museum of Art), Elizabeth Murphy (Executive Director, Fairfax Symphony Orchestra), Beth Pline (Executive Director, Roanoke Symphony Orchestra), Phil Whiteway (Managing Director, Barksdale and Theatre IV), and several others whom I know less well.

At Thursday's meeting, Peggy Baggett began by explaining how and why the Commission viewed Virginia's upcoming Minds Wide Open celebration to be a success. Keith Martin followed with a power point presentation outlining the details of Minds Wide Open: Virginia Celebrates Women in the Arts. Then Gus Stuhlreyer, newly appointed chair of the 2012 Minds Wide Open planning committee, led a discussion of possible themes.

After lunch, I led sessions on various leadership initiatives that the majors could consider for future implementation, statewide reaction to the recent NEA study regarding arts attentance, and potential dates and locations for our summer/fall meeting.

The arts are a two billion dollar industry in Virginia. The overall goal of the majors rountables is to determine the best ways for our states most prominent arts professionals to work together to transform our industry into a force that both the general public and the state legislature will understand, appreciate and respect.

Many thanks to David Fisk for hosting last week's meeting at the Symphony's new digs at CenterStage. It was rewarding to connect again with others who care so passionately about the arts in Virginia.

--Bruce Miller

Thank You Governor Tim Kaine!

Posted by Bruce Miller on Behalf of Alan Albert, Virginians for the Arts
This just in:

"ARTS FUNDING SPARED FURTHER CUTS IN GOVERNOR'S BUDGET PROPOSAL

We are relieved -- relieved and grateful -- to announce that Governor Kaine's proposed 2009 Budget Bill makes no further cuts in arts funding in the Commonwealth. The 15% cut applied to the present state fiscal year (FY 2009) is carried forward into FY 2010 in the Governor's proposal. This means that the total general fund appropriation for the arts will be reduced by slightly more than $930,000 over its original budgeted level for 2010 -- virtually the same reduction already put into place for the current fiscal year.

In a budget-writing season fraught with painful decisions, the arts community is enormously grateful to Governor Kaine and Secretary of Education Tom Morris for recognizing the vitally important role that state funding plays in keeping our cultural infrastructure intact during this very difficult time for nonprofit arts and cultural groups.

But our work has just begun. The Governor's proposal is just that -- a proposal -- and the General Assembly will place its own stamp on the spending plan over the next two months. It is more important now than ever that arts supporters meet with or at least write to their legislators and stress the importance of not making further cuts to arts funding. The very survival of many arts groups, already buffeted by the economic downturn, literally rests in the balance, and the outcome is far from assured.

If you have not contacted your legislators yet, please do so today. Tell them that the arts community is doing its part -- taking cuts every bit as deep as, for instance, higher education and the worst-hit of state agencies -- but cannot take further cuts without losing key components of our cultural infrastructure.

And while you are at it, please take a moment to thank the Governor and the Secretary of Education for what they have done. In the current climate, their actions are the most positive outcome for which we realistically could have hoped. Those actions are courageous and deserve our praise.

Alan Albert
Legislative Counsel
Virginians for the Arts"

Write Governor Timothy Kaine:
The Honorable Timothy M. Kaine
Office of the Governor
Commonwealth of Virginia
Post Office Box 1475
Richmond, Virginia 23218

Write Secretary of Education Thomas Morris:
The Honorable Thomas R. Morris
Secretary of Education
Commonwealth of Virginia
Post Office Box 1475
Richmond, Virginia 23218

--This message was written by Alan Albert, Virginians for the Arts

Final note from Bruce - This is really a wonderful sign of support from Governor Kaine. Please write to thank him, and Secretary Morris. Let's bury their desks in thank you notes. Remember, when Governor Wilder was faced with a less troubling recession in the early 80s, he cut the Virginia Commission for the Arts disproportionately from every other agency, costing individual nonprofit arts groups devastating cuts of approximately 65%. Governor Kaine has held fast at 15%. He gets it!!! Let's please all thank him.

--Bruce Miller

This Labor Day, Celebrate Arts Employment

Posted by Bruce Miller
Today, Barksdale and Theatre IV employ 37 arts professionals working in full-time jobs. It was 39 a few months ago, but we’ve had to reduce staff by two due to financial woes associated with the national recession.

This seems like a lot of people, and it is. But when you consider all we do (33 different productions, many of them touring throughout 32 states, plus all the ancillary activities), we’re actually understaffed.

In addition to these 37 full-time positions, we employ:
· several wonderful box office workers who are paid on an hourly basis, · several talented interns who work on a seasonal basis for weekly stipends,
· several skilled part-time workers who put in less than 40 hours per week in various capacities,
· tens of touring actors who keep Theatre IV’s national tour going strong, and
· legions of freelance actors, directors, designers etc whose talents power our mainstage productions.

We also budget $15,000 per year for hourly production overhire.

All told, Barksdale and Theatre IV invest approximately $2.2 million annually in Virginia’s workforce. If that doesn’t seem like a lot to you, then you’re not one of the ones loosing sleep every two weeks worrying about how we’re going to meet payroll. There’s no grand fund set aside somewhere to cover these and other expenses. We pay out only what we bring in. To meet budget, we need to sell approximately $70,000 per week in tickets and tour shows, and raise approximately $30,000 per week in contributions. During this recession, meeting these goals has been, and will continue to be, very challenging.

That's why I vigorously support continued state funding for the Virginia Commission for the Arts. Additional state cuts will mean additional layoffs, and additional layoffs, at Barksdale and at other nonprofit arts organizations statewide, will ultimately increase rather than decrease Virginia's financial woes.

The arts are a labor intensive industry, which is good for Virginians and the state economy. On average, Virginia’s arts and cultural organizations spend 44.2% of their revenues on labor, 37.2% on other production expenses, 9.8% on facilities, 7.4% on marketing, and 1.4% on state and local taxes and fees. This is a nonprofit industry.

In 2000, Virginians for the Arts, our statewide advocacy group, did an economic impact study in cooperation with the Virginia Commission for the Arts and the Virginia Association of Museums. The study was prepared independently by The Wessex Group, Ltd., located in Williamsburg. I mentioned this study in a previous post. The findings of the study indicate that eight years ago, arts and cultural organizations comprised a major sector of the Virginia economy.

In 2000, 12,507 Virginians were directly employed by arts and cultural organizations (full-time and part-time). They were paid $157.8 million in salary and benefits. An additional 6,344 full-time Virginia jobs were financed indirectly by the economic impact that arts and cultural organizations have on Virginia’s support businesses and independent contractors. All told, in 2000, $306.6 million was paid to 18,851 Virginia workers by Virginia’s arts and cultural organizations.

Additionally, the 2000 study found that arts and cultural organizations in Virginia annually generate $849 million in revenues for Virginia businesses and $342 million in revenues for Virginia tourism businesses through spending by out-of-state visitors who come to see Virginia’s arts and cultural organizations. That’s a total injection into the Virginia economy of nearly $1.2 billion.

I know, it’s a lot of numbers, and they’re eight years out of date. But they’re important. If we don’t celebrate employment in the arts, nobody will. Many of those who make decisions about state funding simply don’t care about the intrinsic value of the arts, but they might care—they ought to care—about how the arts positively effect Virginia’s economy.

Labor Day originated in 1882 when the Central Labor Union of New York City asked the nation to take a day to value America’s workforce, the engine that always has and always will power our nation. This made sense to the U. S. Congress, and so they made Labor Day a federal holiday in 1894. Today, Labor Day is honored by all 50 states.

We who work in or care about the nonprofit arts sector need to make sure that we also get in the game. We need to remember that Labor Day not only marks the closing of our neighborhood pools, plus the beginning of the Virginia public school year and the NFL and NCAA football seasons. Labor Day is our chance to remind all Virginians that the nonprofit arts sector and its 18,851 jobs represent an irreplaceable force in the state economy. The arts are not a frill or a nicety. We are a cornerstone industry, crucial to the Commonwealth and its financial well-being.

--Posted by Bruce Miller

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

Actors Don Festive Finery to Lobby for VCA

Posted by Phil Whiteway
Yesterday was Arts Advocacy Day at the Virginia General Assembly. Representatives of over 200 nonprofit arts organizations from throughout the Commonwealth joined forces to lobby the House and Senate for increased funding for the Virginia Commission for the Arts. Whereas many of our neighboring states fund their nonprofit arts industry at $2 per capita or more, Virginia funding still falls far short at less than 70 cents per capita.

The goal of Arts Advocacy Day is to increase Virginia’s public support for all of the Commonwealth’s nonprofit arts organizations to $1 per capita. That’s right, we’re working strenuously, and have been for years, to convince our elected officials that all of the arts in the entire state are worth one tax dollar per citizen.

We at Barksdale and Theatre IV did our part in this lobbying effort by providing each legislator with a voucher for two free tickets to the show of his or her choice, and by asking two of our handsomely costumed characters to help escort elected officials into the House of Delegates.

Above and to the right you'll see Jennings Whiteway escorting Del Riley Ingram from Hopewell. Del Ingram is a GREAT guy and a longtime friend. He entered the chambers through an alternate entrance, and when he noticed the performing artists escorting the Delegates in, he left his seat, worked his way around back to the main entrance, and re-entered with Jennings as a way of showing respect and support for Virginia's arts community.

The photo above and to the left shows Del Chris Saxman from Staunton, and the photo to the right shows Del Tom Gear from Hampton. In keeping with the theme of the Jamie Brindle blog post, we offer the photo below and to the left. When we were getting set up to begin the ushering, an eighth grader came racing in to say hello. Turns out it was Jake Boon, veteran child actor of Theatre IV's Santa's Toyland Adventure and The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, now serving as a page in the General Assembly.

Great work, Jake!

After the escorting was done and the House had convened, Del Jennifer L McClellan, District 71 Richmond (the district in which the Empire is located), introduced our actors to the assembled body as follows:

"Ladies and Gentlemen of the House of Delegates –

It is my pleasure to recognize our two escorts today – Ms Jennings Whiteway and Mr. Eddie Tavares, representing the cast of The True Story of Pocahontas, produced by Theatre IV – The Children’s Theatre of Virginia.

Created and presented in association with the Virginia Historical Society, The True Story of Pocahontas toured to hundreds of elementary schools statewide throughout all of 2007, reinforcing the instruction mandated in Virginia’s Standards of Learning. In fact, Theatre IV, headquartered in my district, is the largest school-based, professional children’s theatre in the United States. They have performed in every school district in the Commonwealth, and currently reach over 500,000 Virginia children, parents and teachers each year.

Theatre IV is only one of over 200 nonprofit arts organizations in our state that are participating today in Arts Advocacy Day, in support of the Virginia Commission for the Arts. With you, I applaud all of our state’s nonprofit, professional arts organizations, and thank them for their invaluable contributions to education, tourism, economic development, and the quality of life we all enjoy throughout the Commonwealth."

Thanks to Jennings and Eddie for their efforts on behalf of Theatre IV and Barksdale Theatre. Special thanks to Del Jenn McClellan (pictured to the right with Gov Tim Kaine and Barack Obama) for her gracious introduction.

--Phil Whiteway

My Dinner with Bob Porterfield

Posted by Bruce Miller

In the winter of 1968, about six months after Barksdale’s Stop the World residency at Barter (see Barksdale and Barter, Aug 28), and about four months before my high school graduation, I was invited to dinner with Robert Porterfield--"please call me Bob"--Barter’s legendary founder. Here's a photo of Bob (taken about a quarter-century earlier) with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.

This was nothing like my mealtime encounter with Arthur Miller (see My Lunch with Arthur Miller, Aug 12), where I sat respectfully and anonymously at his elbow with neither one of us saying a word. This was an animated three-hour dinner conversation with only four of us in the room.

A little background... In high school, I met one of my lifelong friends, Terry Bliss (pictured to the left). She’s co-author with me of Hugs and Kisses, and she works today as a practicing attorney and Artistic Director of North Street Playhouse in Onancock, VA. I was also good friends with Terry’s younger sister, Kathy. Through Terry and Kathy, I became friends with their mother, also named Terry Bliss. Terry Bliss (the mother) was the director of PAVE (Performing Arts in Virginia Education) after it became independent of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and just before it morphed again into the Virginia Commission for the Arts.

Terry Bliss (the mother) is now named Terry Showalter, and doing great things in Harrisonburg, VA.

Terry Bliss (the mother) had met the late Mason Bliss (the father) while he was working as the booking agent for Barter Theatre after WWII. (Below and to the right, you can find a photo of the Barter touring bus from the post-war years, parked in front of the Algonquin Hotel in NYC.)

In 1946, Mason was trying to book a Barter touring production into Limestone College in Gaffney, South Carolina, where Terry headed the theatre department. He didn't win the booking, but apparently he won the heart of the drama chair. Six months after their first meeting, Mason and Terry were married in Abingdon. Southwest Virginia was “dry” in those days, so Ernest Borgnine (pictured to the right) drove to Tennessee to pick up the wedding champagne. Bob Porterfield was the Best Man. The happy couple moved into the Barter Inn, company housing for the theatre. It was in the Barter Inn that Terry Bliss (the daughter) was conceived and lived the first several months of her life.

Soon after his daughter’s birth, Mason Bliss needed to earn money. He established The House of Bliss Celebrity Bureau, Inc.—yes, that really was the name—and he moved his family to Richmond. From here he ran one of only three producing and nationally touring theatre operations to be located outside of New York or Los Angeles. Terry (the mother) was a respected local actress. (A photo of her on the cover of a Richmond Summer Theatre playbill appears above and to the left.) Each year The House of Bliss would produce touring productions starring the likes of Pernell Roberts, Dennis King, Sir Cedric Hardwicke and Hal Holbrook. Google ‘em if you’re too young to know who they are.

When Mason died in the mid-60s, the House of Bliss died with him. Terry (the mother) went on to direct the state agency PAVE, and it was her job to book arts programs into Virginia’s schools. She relied on her good friend Bob Porterfield and the artists from The House of Bliss to help her with her job.

In 1968, Bob Porterfield was coming to Richmond, and he called Terry Bliss (the mother) to invite himself over for an evening’s meal. She told him about her daughters’ friend (that would be me), a high school student who was, as Moss Hart famously said, "drunk" on “the smell of the theatre.” Bob was renowned for how much he enjoyed talking with students who wanted to go into theatre professionally. He encouraged her to include me in their get together.

Terry (the daughter) was off in college, so Terry (the mother), Kathy, Bob and I met for dinner in February, and the rest of my life was molded, at least in part, in that one funny, moving and passionate conversation.

Bob spoke enthusiastically about the founding of Barter, and about his good friends Pete and Nancy Kilgore and Muriel McAuley (who, at that time, I had yet to meet). He expressed how much he admired Barksdale, because they were going through so much of what he went through in Barter's early days. He professed that theatre was the noblest vocation anyone could accept, and convinced me that, should I decide to pursue such a career, it would be a privilege and an honor that I could not take lightly.

He discussed the work that he and others had done with President Kennedy to create the National Endowment for the Arts, which had finally been established by President Johnson only three years prior to our dinner. Bob passionately believed that encouraging and showcasing artistic excellence would rekindle America’s creative energy, enrich a national cultural landscape that he believed was in danger of stagnation, and engender in average Americans an understanding of what true civilization really meant.

He believed that, due to our nation’s emerging prosperity, we in the U. S. had inherited from Europe the responsibility of being the caretaker of Western culture. He was convinced that the best way to lure developing countries away from communism and toward democracy was through artistic expression, a tool that the Russians were funding at the time with unparalleled vigor.

Decades before the social economist Richard Florida began discussing the "creative class," Bob Porterfield (pictured in the pencil portrait to the left) discussed American business’s need for the creative education and inspiration that only an arts-rich environment can provide.

It was heady stuff. It changed my life.

Bob Porterfield, Pete and Nancy Kilgore, and Muriel McAuley were great leaders not only because of the institutions they founded and sustained, and certainly not only because of the plays they produced. They were great leaders because of the imaginations they ignited, the opportunities they provided, and the dreams they applauded, encouraged and embraced.

I am forever in their debt.

--Bruce Miller

Addendum: On the "Six Degrees" front, Bob Porterfield's secretary at Barter was Byrd Jervey. When Mason Bliss founded The House of Bliss, Byrd accepted a job as his secretary, moving with him back to Richmond so that she could be closer to her sister. Her sister was Helen Jervey, who was Muriel's first friend and office mate at AAA, and would subsequently become a legendary Barksdale All Star, beginning with Barksdale's first mainstage production, Gold in the Hills.

Three Days at the Kennedy Center

Anne Murphy Douglas, President of the Board of Theatre IV, and Bennett Fidlow, new Board member at Barksdale Theatre, joined Phil and me for a three-day seminar with Michael Kaiser and others at the Kennedy Center. We returned yesterday afternoon after a highly informative, intensive and fun learning experience. We’re eager to put our newfound insights to good use here in Richmond.

For those who don’t know, Michael Kaiser (who also recently spoke at the University of Richmond’s Modlin Center) is a world-renowned arts leader. Prior to becoming President of the Kennedy Center in 2001, Michael served as Executive Director of the Royal Opera House (the largest performing arts organization in the UK), Executive Director of American Ballet Theatre, Executive Director of the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater (the world’s largest modern dance organization), and General Manager of the Kansas City Ballet.

Spending two and a half days with Michael feels a little like cramming a year of arts administration training into 20 hours. Part of his brilliance is that he is able to speak clearly and simply, boiling down his extensive experience and research into comprehensible two-hour sessions. His focus areas at seminars such as this include Building an Effective and Energized Board, Strategic Planning, and Institutional Marketing. Other senior executives from the Kennedy Center staff spoke from their areas of expertise: Business Management, Development, Technology and Program Marketing.

Phil and I have been in our positions for 32 years, and never have I felt more in sync with a speaker. In point after point, it was clear that Michael knew exactly what he was talking about. And the points he made applied not only to mammoth international organizations (the Kennedy Center has an annual budget of approximately $160 million) but also to large regional organizations like Barksdale Theatre and Theatre IV (combined annual budgets of approximately $5 million).

If you’ve been to many seminars like this, you know that experts can sometimes speak for hours in a theoretical realm, offering little practical advice. Michael knows how to cut to the chase—how to identify the challenges we face and then offer specific suggestions on how to address these challenges. It really was a terrific learning experience, very validating, mind-stretching and informative.

Special thanks to the Virginia Commission for the Arts for funding our participation through their Technical Assistance grant program, and to Anne and Bennett for giving up their time to join us. This is one seminar that I think will pay off handsomely in the futures of Barksdale Theatre, Theatre IV and the Metro Richmond arts scene in general.