Theatre--News Note

Most of you are probably aware of the potentially huge cut to arts funding in the state of Louisiana. Cody Daigle has sent the following note about the cuts and the effect that it would have on the arts community in our area. Many of the local theatre companies rely at least in some part on grants to help fund their productions. This is not meant to be political in nature; it is meant to alert those who have not heard about the cuts that they are impending and it is the time to educate ourselves about the reasons advanced for the cuts and to decide whether or not each of us individually supports the cuts to the artistic community.

As always, the comments to this blog are moderated. Anything submitted as a comment which is in any way offensive to the editor or potentially offensive to any person or any group will not be posted.

Every member of the Acadiana arts community has a reason right now to worry. Gov. Jindal's proposed budget features a really radical cut to arts funding or our state, and those cuts, if they materialize, will have a profound effect on our community.

I strongly recommend reading the Huffington Post article, because it contains some great statistics and analysis that I don't have at my disposal right now. (Check Wednesday's Advertiser for a full story on the local implications of these cuts.)

But here's the gist: decentralized arts funding (which many small midsize arts organizations in our area rely on) is being cut by 83 percent. Roughly, that means last year's $2.5 million will not be $500,000 -- and that small sum must be divided among all the parishes in the state.

Already competitive grant races will get astronomically more competitive, and the funds won by those organizations lucky enough to get funded will be significantly smaller.

This spells disaster for our community. Many of our arts organizations aren't large enough to compete for federal funds, so state funds from the decentralized grant program are a necessity. If these funds evaporate, these organizations may not be able to continue operations.

For larger organizations, the decentralized funds helped with community outreach and education programs. These are now at risk of disapearing.

The budget also completely eliminates the Louisiana artist fellowships and individual artist grants in folk life categories. These awards helped support area artists continue their work preserving the local traditions and culture, and helped them bring their work (and our culture) to other parts of the country.

This money is now gone.

All of you know how vital our arts communty is, and we're facing a serious threat to that vitality. Take this money out of the community, and you take arts organizations out of the community. If arts organizations disappear, we could lose artists. And if the cuts threaten arts-in-education programs, we could be hurting our ability to cultivate Louisiana's future artist as well.

This is an issue that affects all of us, even if we have never received a single direct dollar of state arts funding.
---Cody Daigle

Here is the link to the story to which Cody alludes in his article:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/howie-klein/bobby-jindal-dont-like-no_b_180462.html