Author: Rosenbaum, Samuel R.

Publication Year: 1964

Media Type: Report

Summary:

It is true that the area of our effusions has been strictly limited this morning by the management. I would love to talk to you about some of the things that I have been enjoined not to mention; for instance, federal government aid for the arts. However, I have been told not to, so I will only do it diplomatically and tangentially.

Abstract:

It is true that the area of our effusions has been strictly limited this morning by the management. I would love to talk to you about some of the things that I have been enjoined not to mention; for instance, federal government aid for the arts. However, I have been told not to, so I will only do it diplomatically and tangentially.

In the very recent past in this town several things have occurred that are quite relevant to the area of our discussion. First, obviously, was the party at the White House on Monday, which some of you attended. It was not an extravaganza, nor a concatenation of accordion players and hillbillies; it really was a good show of our cultural arts. I wonder whether this would have been possible in the previous generation. I rather flatter myself that there is a growing interest in the arts, both creative and performing, and that actually culture has become good politics. And I think that is a very favorable and optimistic sign for our future.

Far from being pessimistic about the financial difficulties that we who are nurturing the performing arts face, I am an incorrigible optimist. I do not think it is at all a disgrace that Oliver Rea feels that the thirty or forty recently established local professional repertory theatres are hanging by an eyelash. The best thing in the world for organizations of that kind, including symphony orchestras, churches and hospitals is to have an operating deficit. It is the thing that gives you the spur, that makes you go out and whack the bushes and raise the money that you have to have. I do not share at all the criticism that is often voiced by budget-balancing business friends of mine that the red figure on the bottom of the right-hand column in a performing arts organization's statement of operations is a disgrace. It does not represent inefficiency and it does not represent carelessness or extravagance. Quite the contrary: it is the element that makes our efforts in the performing arts worthwhile and justified. (p. 117-120)

[Presented as part of the panel on Financial Support of the Arts introduced by Dexter M. Keezer.
 Additional presentations are all listed under Financial Support of the Arts by Dana S. Creel;
 and Carl Kersting.]

Arts & Intersections:

Categories: Fundraising