Thursday, December 01, 2011

Occupy Lincoln Center

One of the many blogs I cull stories from is one called "Theatre Ideas."  The author there has some fairly pronounced thought about how then theatre industry is doing it wrong.  Last week he ran a series of articles that is definitely worth a look comparing the 99% movement and rural arts...


Occupy Lincoln Center (part 1)

Theatre Ideas: If there were 100 nonprofit arts organizations dividing a million dollars, it would look like this:
2 organizations would split $550,000 ($275,000 each)
The remaining 98 organizations would each get $4591
The ratio is a about 60:1
In other words, the income disparity between nonprofit arts institutions is nearly twice as bad as the income disparity in the economy as a whole. If the arts are supposed to hold the mirror up to nature, it is a magnifying glass.
 

Occupy Lincoln Center (part 2)

Theatre Ideas: Yesterday, in the first part of this series, I compared the income and wealth disparities in the American economy to that of the philanthropic support of the nonprofit arts economy. It didn't come out too well. The income gap between the top 2% of arts organizations (those with annual budgets of over $5M) and the remaining 98% was twice a great as the income gap in the economy as a whole. I think that should make us all stop an consider a wee bit, because the situation in the economy as a whole is really, really bad.
 

Occupy Lincoln Center (part 3)

Theatre Ideas: On October 26th, one of the great pioneers of the regional theatre movement, Zelda Fichlander, addressed the assembled Stage Directors and Choreographers Society in celebration of the 3rd annual award named in her honor. The invaluable on-line journal HowlRound posted the text of her speech, in which Fichlander spoke passionately about the early history of the regional theatre movement and the values that formed its foundation. I take a back seat to no one in my admiration for Fichlander, who has provided strong leadership and a vital moral voice in the regional theatre and theatre education for decades. That said, there is a portion of the speech that is, frankly, inaccurate and one that propagates a myth about the development of the regional theatre movement that supports the lack of diversity that is revealed in the Fusing Arts, Culture and Social Change report that has been discussed in the first two parts of this series.

1 comment:

Scott Walters said...

Thanks for the shout out.