Triage for the Arts: A Letter to the New Administration
How to sustain artists during COVID, and how to help them thrive when COVID is gone
In conjunction with BeAnArtsHero.com and The Dramatists Guild, playwrights and other artists were invited to submit a letter to the incoming President and Vice President about our “hopes, dreams, and vision for what America can become with the arrival of a new administration.” This letter is one response to that campaign. #ArtsWorkersUnite #First100Days @JoeBiden @KamalaHarris @WhiteHouse @BeAnArtsHero @DramatistsGuild
Dear President Biden and Vice President Harris:
Visiting Stratford-Upon-Avon for the first time, you’re struck by how much that bustling town owes its prosperity to one thing: theatrical tourism. A whole village, rebuilt over the centuries on a foundation of the arts. I imagine an opera lover would find the same while wandering through Bayreuth, or a baseball fan while visiting Cooperstown. In the midst of such a place, it is impossible to doubt the crucial role that the arts, including sports and all forms of culture, plays in the health, prosperity, and vitality of a community. And if there were any lingering doubt, the current pandemic, in which everyone has been forced to remain at home for months, has proved it: “Netflix and chill” is how we’re all surviving. Without the arts, we would all probably be drooling our way to the madhouse.
Madness is a bit too close as it is. Let’s not let it get any closer.
The Breath and Blood of Stories
Storytelling, the umbrella under which all the arts fall, is a fundamental human need, as urgent and necessary as breath, shelter, and food. We are, every one of us, people who tell and absorb stories, in all their forms. Stories transmit information and morality, joy and hope, all at once. What is The Bible but a very long anthology of stories? Indeed, the New Testament, with its Rashomon-like collection of differing points of view on one story, was post-modern millennia before there was anything “modern” to be “post” of.
The arts bridge political divides by providing windows into other lives, other cultures, other experiences — would there have been an Obergefell decision if there hadn’t first been Will & Grace? Mr. President, you said something similar in 2012 on Meet the Press: “I think ‘Will & Grace’ probably did more to educate the American public than almost anything anybody’s ever done so far.”
That’s why so many of us are collectively pleading for a little special attention, when stimulus measures are being considered, to the particular plight of artists across the nation, the ones whose prior work has been keeping us sane while those same artists stare in despair at their plunging bank accounts. Even with the Save Our Stages Act that was included in the recent stimulus package, which is most welcome, it’s important to remember that arts organizations have been hit with a mallet by COVID, and preserving them for our post-plague future is crucial.
A Short-Term Solution
One of the ideas that’s been proposed is a revival of the Depression-era Federal Theatre Project (“FTP”), which could offer an ongoing level of support during the emergency, helping to keep artists on their feet while also encouraging work that will last long after the program ends. It’s also worth noting that the original FTP encouraged the work of Black artists at a time when there were few outlets for their talents — such an emphasis on artists of color would be particularly welcome now.
A Long-Term Solution
Expanding on that idea, there have also been proposals for a permanent, cabinet-level Department of the Arts, perhaps along the lines of the U.K.’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, or the French Ministry of Culture. Because long-term, we need to recognize that even in the best of times, most artists lead challenging lives. It’s a maxim that anyone who does a thing because they love it, is almost guaranteed to get underpaid for it. We can’t let the celebrities of the various media blind us to the truth that most of their fellows will never enjoy a house in Malibu.
A cabinet-level department would be a long-overdue recognition of the central role the arts play in American life, and, unlike the country’s many state and municipal programs, would be able to coordinate cultural resources efficiently across the whole nation. And if anyone on the other side of the aisle asks where the money will come from (don’t know why I’m saying “if,” because of course they will), just remind them that in 2017, the arts added $877 Billion with a B to the economy in what might be a very conservative underestimate.
Imagine if those voices and talents could be sought out at a young age and encouraged, guided, given room and time to blossom, not just in the cities or states where strong programs already exist, but everywhere. Imagine if young Robert Zimmerman had been able to find enough support in Hibbing, Minnesota to stay and grow his talents, without needing to move to New York and become Bob Dylan. He would still be brilliant, but it might have been a more locally-inflected brilliance, and that’s a very intriguing thought.
Our Post-COVID Cultural Future
One of the principal functions of government is to help people better weather the difficult times. In these most difficult times, government can take the lead and establish new programs that will leave the country well-positioned to again take the lead in global cultural affairs once the disease passes. If our arts institutions were great before, we can take steps now to ensure that they are even greater in the future. A few decades from now, we could have a dozen Stratfords, and that would be glorious.
Thank you,
Robert Toombs
Playwright, Dramatists Guild member
