Arts Leaders Say Outreach Programs Headed for Cuts : Arts: Proposed reduction of NEA support will leave high and dry local education programs that depend on federal grants to seed operations.

By TOM WHITE

March 13, 1995 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

With the fate of the National Endowment for the Arts threatened by fiscal conservatives such as House Speaker Newt Gingrich, many Los Angeles arts organizations place community outreach programs at the forefront of cuts that would result from reductions in NEA support.

“We would inevitably have to cut those things that aren’t income-producing,” says Gordon Davidson, artistic director of the Center Theatre Group. “I’m dealing with tight corners these days.”

Davidson’s remarks echo those of a number of local NEA grant recipients who stand to be hit by the wave of cost-cutting in Washington, where Gingrich and other prominent Republicans have called for the elimination of the NEA and other cultural agencies, including the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. With an eye toward such cuts, congressional leaders are currently considering three measures that will determine the endowment’s future support for the arts community, including a bill that could eliminate all 1995 funding not yet allocated from the NEA’s $167-million budget.

Today in Washington, the American Council for the Arts organized a briefing for arts leaders from around the country who on Tuesday will visit Capitol Hill to lobby on behalf of the NEA. Tuesday’s events start with a congressional breakfast that will include participation by Michael Greene, President/CEO of the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences; actor Tony Randall, and L.A. City Councilman Joel Wachs, among others.

The intent of the lobbying effort is to impress Congress with the breadth of NEA activities and the effect of its financial support.

At Center Theatre Group, which this year is receiving a $215,000 general matching grant from the endowment, Davidson says that without NEA funding he would have to consider cutting a number of non-revenue-producing activities, including mentor programs for minority and disabled artists, and PLAY (Performing for Los Angeles Youth), which brings as many as 3,000 young people to performances of main-stage productions.

“Sometimes you can weather a onetime cut,” says Davidson, noting that the NEA’s general support grant to the theater is down more than $100,000 from previous years. “But if it’s a change in the landscape . . . the profile of what you do will be inevitably affected.”

Across town at the Cornerstone Theater, similar concerns are on the mind of managing director Stephen Gutwillig. With the support of a $12,500 matching grant from the NEA’s theater program, the company is staging a series of productions in Watts designed to foster positive relations between Latinos and African Americans. The culmination of the series, in which local residents of all ages volunteer as performers and production assistants, is a larger “bridge” show, which rewards the best volunteer performers with professional-scale salaries and which is funded in large part by a three-year $125,000 NEA challenge grant.

“Being able to have the bridge show is a big deal because it’s the part of our programming which most directly effects our participants economically,” says Gutwillig. “It’s an investment that Cornerstone makes in communities across the city that would otherwise not be made.”

For Gutwillig and others, it’s these community programs that belie the NEA’s elitist reputation and are often overshadowed by some of the endowment’s more controversial grants.

They argue that only with NEA support can local organizations develop projects for student, minority and disadvantaged audiences, which aren’t targeted by traditional arts programming.

Tom Jacobson, head of grants for Los Angeles County Museum of Art, says that LACMA’s educational programs for touring exhibitions would face sharp cutbacks in the event of reduced NEA support, pointing in particular to the museum’s “Evenings for Educators” workshops, which are attended by more than 500 local teachers.

At Los Angeles Philharmonic, similar projects include free education and community programs such as “Live on Campus” and “Neighborhood Concerts” as well as discount tickets for students and senior citizens.

At the Music Center Opera, NEA grant money goes to the “In School Opera Program,” in which professional cast and crew members spend eight weeks at local elementary and high schools teaching their trade and developing school productions.

At the International Documentary Assn., which operates as a fiscal sponsor for NEA-funded independent filmmakers, workshops and awards programs are also highly dependent on endowment support.

“Nothing makes a profit here,” says IDA executive director Betsy McLane, noting that government support accounts for about 20% of the organization’s $350,000-to-$500,000 budget, “but some things do bring in money, and obviously doing outreach to underserved youth isn’t one of those things.” According to McLane, recent cuts in outreach support from local grant agencies such as the Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department already have made it impossible for IDA to continue its student programs without NEA funding.

For other organizations, endowment grants can be more of a necessity than a means of supporting non-revenue-generating programs.

“We went from having nothing for the dancers to now we have something, and it’s all because of the NEA,” says Erwin Washington, executive director for Lula Washington’s Los Angeles Contemporary Dance Theater. “We just weren’t part of the (mainstream) funding flow, so we needed that NEA base just to function.”

Since 1993, the 15-year-old dance company has been receiving $10,000 in annual grants from the endowment’s dance program, used primarily to supplement the salaries of the eight to 12 dancers the company hires for productions. But, Washington says, as important as this monetary support is the impact that NEA grants have had in attracting private funding sources.

With state and local arts agencies increasingly facing budget woes, Washington wonders if the company’s recent good fortune will be short-lived.

“The fear that I have is that the states will not be able to take the same point of view that the NEA has,” says Washington. “Local funding is almost always for projects, and you have to demonstrate how that project is for some public good. The NEA is able to say, ‘We want you to function and operate effectively.’ And as long as you’re going for excellence and to do good work, that’s what’s important.”