Funding Shakespeare

My heartfelt appreciation to the anonymous Costa Mesa woman who gave $10,000 to the Grove Shakespeare Festival (Oct. 25).

But what a sad commentary it is on the National Endowment for the Arts. None of the controversy over NEA funding would have happened if the endowment had been spending its money wisely. Why can a woman who smears food on her naked body get funding when a Shakespeare festival can’t?

Our government should support the arts by helping to find the artist in us all--by funding programs that put poets, painters, writers and dancers in the schools; by helping cities fund plays and concerts in our parks; by supporting teaching inner-city youth to paint murals instead of graffiti.

Let experimental art and the private performance artists get funding elsewhere. Let the government fund truly “public art.”

MARK JAMES PAVLAKOVICH

Hermosa Beach