| YEAR 3 ON THE ILLINOIS ARTS COUNCIL - AND BLAGO-BASHING PART TWO
by Jason Loewith on 6/27/2008 10:30:00 AM
Last Thursday and Friday, I was honored to participate in my third and final year as a panelist for the Illinois Arts Council's theater granting program. Each year, I and six other panelists review over 100 applications from Illinois theaters with budgets between $50,000 and $3,000,000, ranging from amateur to professional, rural to urban, and with missions of every conceivable variety.
It's hard, time-consuming work, but I have learned much in my three years on the Council. For one, we in Chicagoland often forget (or might not even know) that every inch of this state is peppered with committed theater professionals and enthusiasts. Places remote to us like Quincy, Peoria, and Western Springs play host to excellent community theater troupes that rival what Chicago proper has to offer. Companies with unique missions like Special Gifts Theater in Northbrook (which puts on plays with disabled kids) or Thresholds (which does work with mentally-challenged adults, often in concert with the Chicago Police Department) blow me away each year with their unique approach to theater as a tool for social change. And of course, the great troupes of Chicagoland, from Redmoon to Writers to Lookingglass, all apply.
And they compete for a disastrously small pool of money.
As you know if you read my blog, last year, the Governor (thanks to his feud with Mike Madigan) savaged the Illinois Arts Council budget with a 40% cut. This draconian, politically-motivated slashing (which happened in the course of the already-started fiscal year for most of us) meant, among other things:
*The cancellation of Next's Saturday Salon Series
*Staff cuts at theaters big and small throughout the state
*The end of outreach programs at small urban companies
*The dissolution of arts-education initiatives in every corner of Illinois
*Less money for artists, who are already severely underpaid
The Governor's new Illinois Arts Council has a budget so small that:
*Illinois now spends less per capita than Oklahoma or Mississippi, states with no national or international arts profile to speak of
*Illinois was one of only three states in the country to cut arts funding in FY08
*Last year's cut was the largest percentage cut in the Council's history
(Visit the Illinois Arts Alliance for more information about last year's cuts.)
And there is worse news coming down the pike.
Although the State Legislature's proposed budget restored most (but not all) of the Governor's cut, Blagojevich has made clear that he's up for even deeper cuts... in FY08, the deficit hole was only $500 million; this year, it's $2 billion.
Soon on this blog you'll see some actions you can take to keep the Illinois Arts Council alive. Make no mistake, folks: more cuts in the Illinois Arts Council mean they oughta just shut the thing down, because it'll be no more than a token... to my mind, Blagojevich should be ashamed of himself.
And frankly, the arts community in Illinois should be ashamed of itself too, and the journalists who serve it. Have you heard anything about it when you go to the theater? Has there been an organized effort to let Blago and his own private Cheney, Senate President Emil Jones, know that they're making a mockery of the newest Tony-winning town throughout the nation?
Let's get angry, let's get together, and let's do something to make sure the state of Illinois isn't the least supportive state in the nation when it comes to the arts.Labels: Blagojevich, Illinois Arts Council
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