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

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

We Interrupt Our Regular Programming...

Posted by Bruce Miller
I love WCVE-FM and public radio. Honestly, it’s the only radio station I listen to—even during pledge drives. I sometimes try to turn my dial to other stations rather than listen to the heartfelt pleas for contributions, but I’m never very successful. I find myself always coming back to my comfortable, rewarding radio home.

The pledge are necessary, I know. I can’t help but wonder what would happen if in the middle of Boleros for the Disenchanted, Shining City, Boys’ Life, Souvenir, Irma Vep, Mahalia, The Ugly Duckling, I’m Not Rappaport, The New Century, or Much Ado … the Managing Director stepped out from the wings and stopped the show.

“We interrupt our regular programming,” she might say, “to ask you, our listeners, to donate the money we need to survive. We only do this every six months during our pledge drives. But we won’t stop interrupting our shows until we raise the funds we need.”

I’m being facetious, of course. It’s apples and oranges. But still, were we to try something like this, our poor managing directors would be pummelled with every balled up playbill and loose arm rest in the house.

Live theatre isn’t something you can put on hold while you ask your audience for money. The connection is too immediate and intense. You can’t turn it on and off. Breaking that connection mid-performance would be unthinkable.

And yet any of us who work in this crazy business know full well that the funds needed to keep our nonprofit professional theatres alive are just as necessary as the funds needed to support public television and public radio. Public radio commentators lament that less than 15% of their funding comes from government grants. At Barksdale, we receive less than 2% of our funding from local, state and federal funds.

So here’s a modest proposal—I hope it won’t be perceived as too subversive by my friends at WCVE-FM. And if it is, not to worry. Nobody out there takes this blog seriously.

What if each theatre in town had a fund set up to pay for “sponsorships” on WCVE-FM? I'm talking about an official fund with which WCVE is directly connected. “Sponsorships” are those little 20-second promos that say something akin to “All Things Considered is brought to you today by Henley Street Theatre, now presenting Shining City, a bold and fascinating new play by Conor McPherson, starring Joe Inscoe and Larry Cook.” If such special funds existed at the theatres, when theatre lovers wanted to support WCVE-FM, they could donate their $60 or whatever to their favorite theatre rather than directly to the radio station. As the money is donated, the theatres could call in the funds raised to the radio station, so WCVE could still keep up with their pledges.

All the money donated would then be used to promote the nonprofit theatre on WCVE-FM. The money would go to WCVE (so it would be a win for them) AND the money would also support the nonprofit theatre that needs to pay dearly for those “sponsorships." The donor would be supporting both public radio AND the Richmond nonprofit theatre of their choice. A win-win.

The money raised might actually be greater; donors like win-wins.

It’s worth a moment’s thought.

--Bruce Miller

Meeting with the Shubert Foundation

Posted by Bruce Miller
Phil and I go to New York two or three times a year, and during each of these business trips, we try to address several institutional objectives. Last week’s NYC excursion included our annual visit with Amy Dorfman, Program Director of The Shubert Foundation.

Amy is as informed an arts leader as you'll meet. I’m acquainted with few individuals who know more about professional theatre in the United States, in terms of either art or management. Sometimes Amy visits us here in Richmond and sees one of our shows. More often we visit her in New York. During each of these visits, Phil, Amy and I have the chance to catch up on what’s happening among regional theatres nationally and in our respective necks of the wood.

The Shubert Organization, a for-profit entity, manages the largest commercial theatre empire in the nation. Since the deaths of the founding Shubert brothers, The Shubert Organization has been fully owned by The Shubert Foundation, a nonprofit entity. It is a very unique model. Today, 100% of the profits earned by the Shubert Organization go to fund the good work of the Shubert Foundation.

According to the Foundation Center Online, in fiscal 2008 the Shubert Foundation had total assets of $323,089,815, placing it somewhere in the middle of the 200 largest foundations in the nation. Total giving by The Shubert Foundation in fiscal 08 amounted to $16,930,435.

The Shubert Organization owns and/or operates 17 Broadway theatres—the Ambassador, the Barrymore, the Belasco, the Booth, the Broadhurst, the Broadway, the Cort, the Golden, the Imperial, the Longacre, the Lyceum, the Majestic, the Music Box, the Plymouth, the Royale, the Shubert and the Winter Garden—and one Off-Broadway theatre, The Little Shubert. Outside New York, the Shuberts own both the Shubert Theatre in Boston and the Forrest in Philadelphia, and manage the National Theatre in Washington, D.C.

In the last three decades, The Shubert Organization has dedicated its energies and resources to a long-term campaign for the revitalization of the American theatre. Its many projects have included the refurbishment of all Shubert playhouses, devoted participation in civic and community affairs, and a continuing effort to rehabilitate the Times Square Theatre District.

The principal goal of The Shubert Foundation is to support nonprofit, professional resident theatre and dance companies in the United States. The Foundation provides grants “only to organizations that have an established artistic and administrative track record, as well as a history of fiscal responsibility.”

The roster of Shubert Foundation grantees includes the most accomplished nonprofit professional theatre and dance companies in the nation. Barksdale and Theatre IV are proud to be recipients of Shubert funding.

Tomorrow, I’ll write about the history of the Shubert building in which we meet. Just like many things involving the Shuberts, it’s filled with drama.

--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

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

Random Thoughts on Blogs and Baltimore

Posted by Bruce Miller
I try to keep up with the several interesting theatre related blogs in Richmond, most notably Dave Timberline’s posts on http://richmondvatheater.blogspot.com/. I enjoy reading what Dave writes. Also, the comments posted by other readers are often informative, challenging and fun. Reading Dave’s blog is a good way to keep up with what fellow theatre types (Richmond and beyond) are thinking and saying.

I recommend his blog to you. Once there you can find links to lots of the more personal blogs written by Richmond theatre artists, several of which are also consistently interesting.

On the Barksdale site we offer links to all the theatres in town, but we don’t offer links to the blogs. Since many of the writers/owners of these blogs frequently review, audition for and/or work on our shows, we maintain a respectful, professional distance.

For the record, I like, admire and respect both David and Holly Timberline, and I’ve known them professionally for over two decades. I was there when they met. But I don’t hang with them. Maybe after I retire, Terrie and I will be so lucky.

If these ramblings are starting to make no sense, it may be because I’m bouncing off of recent comments in his blog.

I seldom post a comment on Dave’s blog because the world now has more than enough opportunities to hear my point of view. I’ve become one of those the press turns to for quotes. For the first 25 years of my 33-year career, that was not the case. But things change with time.

There’s been a robust blog conversation at Dave’s place recently regarding STYLE Weekly’s “report card” on Richmond theatre. My main beef with the “report card” was the whole Baltimore thing. (Not Taylor Baltimore--love her!) Baltimore the metro area. I think it’s clear to almost everyone (except, apparently, the editors of STYLE) that implying that Richmond’s population is larger than the population of Baltimore is … let’s say “misinformed.”

Baltimore and Washington are considered frequently to be one Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA); so are Richmond and Petersburg. And that's as it should be. Go to MapQuest and you’ll find that Barksdale at Hanover Tavern and Sycamore Rouge are 2 miles farther apart (43 miles separate the two) than are Arena Stage in D. C. and Center Stage in Baltimore (41 miles).

The US Census Bureau defines an MSA as “one or more adjacent counties or county equivalents that have at least one urban area of at least 50,000, plus adjacent territory that has a high degree of social and economic integration with the core as measured by commuting ties.”

The Washington/Baltimore MSA is the fourth largest metro area in the nation, with a total population, based on the most recent census figures, of 8,211,213. The Richmond/Petersburg MSA (which includes the cities of Richmond, Petersburg, Hopewell and Colonial Heights, the town of Ashland, and the counties of Amelia, Caroline, Charles City, Chesterfield, Cumberland, Dinwiddie, Goochland, Hanover, Henrico, King and Queen, King William, Louisa, New Kent, Powhattan, Prince George, and Sussex) is the nation’s 42nd largest metro area, with a total population of 1,194,008.

In other words, according to the U S Census Bureau, the MSA population of Washington/Baltimore is nearly seven times larger than the MSA population of Richmond/Petersburg.

MSA populations indicate not only the number of potential ticket buyers available to a theatre. They also almost always correlate with the number and strength of Fortune 500 companies headquartered in each MSA, and the number and strength of private foundations. Larger cities like Baltimore tend to provide more local government funding to their major arts organizations than do smaller cities like Richmond. And those states that include the larger MSAs almost always provide more state government funding to their major arts institutions.

Leading professional theatres in larger MSAs therefore have access to more donated funds, and typically derive 40 to 50 percent of their total revenues from contributions.

Leading professional theatres is smaller MSAs have significantly less access to funding. Barksdale Theatre and Theatre IV derive 28% of total revenues from contributions. Based on our combined annual budget of $5 million, the difference between 28% and the national standard of 40% is $600,000 per year. Imagine how much more we could do, how much better we could be with an additional $600,000 per annum.

“Report cards” are good when they recognize and reward your strengths while challenging you to be aware of and work toward addressing your weaknesses. “Report cards” are not-so-good when they measure your acheivements against unreasonable expectations and wind up demoralizing a community to the point where people no longer have the will to address those weaknesses.

There is absolutely no reason for anyone involved in Richmond theatre to feel demoralized. Don’t get me wrong—Richmond theatres (especially Barksdale Theatre and Theatre IV) need to continually identify weaknesses and work to make them better. There is great need and opportunity for improvement and growth.

But by most reasonable measurements, Richmond theatre is now stronger than ever. Best of all, our theatres are uniquely Richmond, as they should be. We do everyone a disservice by insinuating that we could or should be more like theatres in Baltimore.

That’s my opinion. More to come.

--Bruce Miller

Congress Approves Historic Increase for NEA

Posted by Phil Whiteway
Four days ago, on Dec 20, something important happened—something I hope we all will applaud. In a lean budget year, the U. S. Congress passed the 2008 Omnibus Appropriations Bill which included a $20.3 million (16%) increase to the National Endowment for the Arts, the largest single increase that the NEA has received in 30 years.

The 2008 NEA budget will now be $144.7 million, equal to the annual budget of the National Endowment for the Humanities for the first time since NEA funding was decimated in 1995 under the Contract with America. The Contract, which was released by the United States Republican Party during the 1994 Congressional election campaign, condemned the NEA for funding “obscene” art. The Contract was written by Newt Gingrich, Tom DeLay, Richard Armey, Robert Walker, Bill Paxton, Jim Nussle and John Boehner. Only Boehner continues to serve in Congress today.

To put this funding in perspective, Congress now allocates $144.7 million to the NEA in support of every nonprofit arts organization in the nation. That amounts to approximately $0.47 per capita. The Congress allocates $420 million to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, amounting to approximately $1.38 per capita. The Arts Council of England currently invests approximately $687 million annually in support of Britain’s nonprofit arts organizations, or $11.45 per capita.

This historic increase of funding to the NEA reflects years of advocacy to restore the Endowment to the funding levels it once had in the mid-90s. Thanks go to all arts staffers and Board leaders throughout Virginia who have been working hard for more than a decade to convince Congress that the nonprofit arts in America are worthy of support.

We will be writing to our members of Congress to let them know how the added funding for the NEA will make a difference in Richmond and Virginia. If you support 47 cents of your annual tax dollars going to support all of the nonprofit art organizations in the United States, we encourage you to write your congressional representatives to thank them for this restoration of funds to the NEA.

--Phil Whiteway