Caught this article ("When Lowbrow Subsidizes Highbrow") in today's
Wall Street Journal. It's notable for such a pro-business publication to question nonprofit cultural organizations for adopting business models that place their missions at risk in search of money they feel they cannot attract on the basis of their missions alone.
Among nonprofit resident professional theatres, public conversations about this subject rarely take place.
Sure, there are plenty that sell their souls for the almighty dollar, detouring them from devoting 100% of their resources to their missions, but the subject only crops up during frequent quiet laments about the dwindling audience for serious theatre in the U.S.--the
raison d'etre of the regional theatre movement. That's when managers ask colleagues privately for the theatre equivalent of a "stock tip," a small, inexpensive, commercially successful show they can put on their stage to pay the bills.
Few theatres today have the resources to remain 100% true to their missions, and plenty are justifying what they know to be questionable artistic choices on the basis of audience development when there is little evidence to show that lasting bonds are created with commercial theatregoers who are simply not interested in the more serious fare for many reasons (partly because they have not been trained to be interested since arts education has long been removed from our public schools).
Of course, the best example of this is the ubiquitous holiday presentation "A Christmas Carol," offered annually at so many of the nation's regional theatres--even some with outstanding reputations and high artistic aspirations. It's rationalized as being a classic--after all, it is Charles Dickens--and even highbrow arts lovers enjoy seeing it. And it's not as crass as offering [insert the name of any contemporary commercial hit here] that rival theatres find themselves forced into putting on their stages to make a buck.
But just as virtually no ballet company can survive without its annual "The Nutcracker," many theatre companies are heavily dependent upon the annual shot-in-the-arm from "A Christmas Carol." (This situation was hilariously lampooned in "Inspecting Carol" by Daniel Sullivan and the Seattle Repertory Theatre, which I produced at the Laguna Playhouse quite a number of years ago."
The dilemma of financing high culture is one that is timely.
The National Endowment for the Arts just received a $20 million increase in President Bush's 2009 budget (it's still below its pre-Reagan-arts wars level, and $170 million for the entire U.S. still remains below that famous benchmark--how much the federal government spends on military bands) and the Arts Council of Britain has received a significant increase in funding (but then mired itself in controversy when it sought to cull hundreds of worthy groups from its roster).
Is selling one's soul to keep the doors open the answer?
For the arts organizations that fly "without a net" (i.e. adequate endowment), the answer is probably "yes."
But as we witness universities' tremendous success in building endowments--some so outrageously large (and targeted for criticism) that they are starting to offer drastically reduced tuition, even to affluent students--the only long-term solution is indeed a major endowment thrust.
This is not a new idea, but few cultural organizations have made it a priority.
It's far from easy (much easier to raise capital for visible bricks-and-mortar projects and even for annual operating expenses), but I think prospective donors who care about an organization
can be convinced that this is the most important way that they can ensure the long-term financial health of that institution.
And for the institution, the freedom from abrogating its mission and the ability to expand access to our civilization's collective cultural legacy should be of paramount importance.
Until next time...
Rick
During my daily workouts, while I'm ellipticalling (or whatever one calls walking/jogging/stairclimbing/pumping on the so-called elliptical machine), I often listen to my favorite Steely Dan album, Alive in America, the live album of their tour umpteen years ago (1993-94) when they proved 1) they weren't dead yet, and 2) that they were not just a studio band (actually, they had toured in the early days and still do, but it became a legendary truism that "Steely Dan never tours"). 
