This piece was originally written for and posted on BroadwayWorld. It is republished here with permission.

Theater makers have a “show must go on” spirit. So it is no surprise that the vast majority of the over forty artistic leaders I spoke to in the last two weeks believed they would find a way to survive even without promised National Endowment for the Arts funding. But it won’t be easy.

“I'm going to make this show happen,” said Deborah Block, Producing Artistic Director of Theatre Exile in Philadelphia, which had its $25,000 grant for R. Eric Thomas’ Glitter in the Glass terminated. “The question is: ‘Will we get to the end of the year okay? What will next year look like? Can we have a next year?’ I know that I'm not alone in that I'm a small regional theater that is still managing a debt from Covid. So our ability to be adaptable and to deal with the hiccups has gotten a lot more narrow—it’s just gotten more difficult to be able to adapt to these things because we’re also paying off a deficit.”

As has been widely reported, on Friday night, May 2, the majority of organizations with current direct NEA grants were told via an email from a generic arts.gov address that those grants were being terminated effective May 31. Similarly, the majority of those organizations that had received funding recommendations, but not yet their official awards, were told those recommendations were being withdrawn. A smattering of similar emails have gone out since May 2.

Before getting into the details of the terminations or the horrible impact they may have, it is important to keep the numbers behind all of this in mind. The National Endowment for the Arts’ 2024 appropriation of $207 million constituted about .003% of the federal budget. Its proposed 2025 budget was expected to increase by a mere $3 million. To put that $207 million in perspective, the future Air Force One plane that has been in the news reportedly has a value of over $400 million. The 2025 Met Gala raised $31 million for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, so about 15% of the entire NEA budget. While there is deferred compensation at play, Shohei Ohtani, one baseball player, essentially makes 1/3 of the NEA budget for each year he plays for the Dodgers (sans endorsement deals). 

If you look at NEA theater and musical theater awards for the 2025 fiscal year solely (grants that were expected to begin this fiscal year, not including grants that began in prior years but continued into this year), they totaled only $4.63 million. To put that in theater terms—BC/EFA raised $2 million more during its spring red bucket fundraising competition. Good Night and Good Luck has grossed more than $4 million in one week.

Now, $4.63 million isn’t the entire financial impact of the NEA on theater. Theater is obviously impacted by all arts and society in general. There are also dance, music and multi-disciplinary programs that aren’t technically categorized as “theater” that many might consider theater. But, more importantly, the NEA funds state, local government entities, and federally recognized tribes that then fund theater and theater artists. Forty percent of all NEA grantmaking funds go directly to state arts agencies and regional arts organizations. Individual artists are not usually eligible for direct NEA funding, but they can be funded through these other entities. So, the number that was expected to go to theaters, theater programs, and theater artists from the NEA was more than that $4.63 million number.

Countless theater artists will tell you that they have been touched by the NEA at some point in their career. Most of us don’t even realize the impact of the NEA on projects we know and love. In 2022, the Studio Theatre in Washington, D.C. received a direct grant of $15,000 to help with costs on the world premiere production of my pick for Broadway’s Best Play, John Proctor is the Villain.

Now, $15,000 might not seem like a lot, and it was not a tremendous amount in 2022 either. Many of these grants are fairly small. That has long been a criticism of the system: NEA grants are complicated and time-consuming to apply for and the financial take home is seemingly little. For the fiscal year 2025 grants, of the 175 given across the two theater categories, the majority of them were equal to or less than $20,000. But that money has real value. First, a lot of these companies and programs require relatively tiny expenditures. NEA arts projects grants require a 1:1 funding match, either cash or in kind. That means if a local theater camp costs $20,000—and they can be done for that or even less—a $10,000 grant requires the company to raise $10,000, and even that is sometimes a struggle. Take away half of a $20,000 budget and the program is in jeopardy without a funding influx. These numbers seem small from New York where a midsize Broadway play costs over $500,000 a week to run, but they are huge elsewhere.

It's more than that though. The NEA serves as a certification of sorts. Numerous leaders talked about the validation the NEA grant provides to your work, which helps morale inside your organization and your reputation outside it.

“The National Endowment for the Arts is like the Good Housekeeping seal of approval,” said Steve Martin, Managing Director of Childsplay in Arizona, which had a $25,000 grant terminated. “It makes it a little bit easier for us to be able to get additional funding. It's a badge that other people respect. So it isn't just the NEA that's providing funding for our project. We actually leverage those funds to obtain other funds.”

This will be a bigger problem if the NEA is cut entirely, which the Trump administration has proposed. But, of course, in the immediate, it is the current money shortfall that matters. NEA grants require money to be expended, and then allowable expenses are reimbursed. In other words, you cannot wait until the money is in your bank. These funds were either planned for or spent—loans may even have been obtained on the basis of the grant—leaving many companies now scrambling.

A minority of organizations had gotten wise prior to May 2 that trouble was brewing. Early in Trump's administration, the NEA announced it was canceling the “Challenge America” grant program for fiscal year 2026. Then there were the new requirements for 2026 grants, which put many current recipients on edge. Additionally, grant terminations for the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Institute for Museum and Library Services had occurred. More specifically, several organizations reported problems finding their grant in the internal system or being able to get into the payment portal. When they reached out to NEA representatives, a few were told their already confirmed grant was “under review.” Some even started fundraising in early spring based on what they saw as frozen funds. However, for most, May 2 was a shock.

Theater organizations big and small have had their grants terminated. Theatre Communications Group and American Theatre generously shared the list they have compiled of terminated grants and the names on it range from programs I’ve never heard of to those I’ve known my whole life.

The news tends to focus on specific theaters or local agencies, but some projects impacted have national implications. For example, the National Alliance for Musical Theatre (NAMT) had a $100,000 grant withdrawn that was expected to cover a significant portion of the costs for its annual conference and festival of new musicals, long thought to have a huge beneficial impact on the development of musicals.

“Losing funding for the conference and festival [has a] ripple effect on the entire development future of a lot of writers and pieces,” Betsy King Militello, NAMT Executive Director, stated. “It has a fieldwide impact, but that's also sometimes a harder story to tell because the theater in your community is where you're home; rightly people like to contribute to the thing in their backyard first.”

The Drama League is another organization with national reach and a NEA grant—but luckily they got their grant money already. Some organizations had spent and received money before the termination notices were sent. For examples known to New Yorkers, WP Theater (formerly known as the Women’s Project Theater) had already received the majority of its $50,000 grant; New York Theatre Workshop received all of its promised $50,000.

The majority of organizations were not so lucky, either because they had not yet started amassing the bulk of expenses for a project or because the system was frozen by the time they attempted to process their reimbursement.

Theaters are keeping contingency plans in mind if they do not receive federal money or a fundraising windfall. The Chesapeake Shakespeare Company had a $50,000 grant for its mobile outdoor performance unit canceled. Ian Gallanar, Founder and Artistic Director of the Chesapeake Shakespeare Company, explained that each mounting of his mobile It's the Comedy of Errors, Hon!, which reaches underserved communities throughout Maryland, costs about $20,000. He currently has 24 scheduled; if he has to cut back on stops, he will, but that is a last resort.

Some leaders talked to me about shifting money and hoping for a better tomorrow. Others spoke about reducing costume and set budgets. One, who did not want to go public, told me she was cutting her salary by $10,000 so her company did not feel the hit.

“The type of artwork we’re all able to do is going to be affected across the board and it’s just a matter of how much depending on the institution,” Lindsay Smiling, co-Artistic Director of the Wilma Theater, which had a $25,000 grant terminated, said.

The Termination Terms

Even those folks who expected they might not receive their funding, were surprised at the email itself. The emails stated the NEA was “updating its grantmaking policy priorities” to focus on the President’s priorities, with those priorities being: “Projects that elevate the Nation’s HBCUs and Hispanic Serving Institutions, celebrate the 250th anniversary of American independence, foster AI competency, empower houses of worship to serve communities, assist with disaster recovery, foster skilled trade jobs, make America healthy again, support the military and veterans, support Tribal communities, make the District of Columbia safe and beautiful, and support the economic development of Asian American communities.”

Though no official explanation on what happened has been given, word on the street is that the NEA division heads were not aware this email was going out, and learned about it after the impacted organizations. (Many of them then resigned after being offered a buyout.)

“The cuts seem targeted to creative work in general and not specific creative work, but it is a complete shift in priorities for what the National Endowment for the Arts was funding and what it was created to fund,” noted Quintessence Theatre Group Executive Director Erica Ezold, whose company had a $25,000 grant terminated for development of a new multi-disciplinary work, Fire!! The Play, which is scheduled to premiere next season.

No one I spoke to is quite sure how these exact, and very specific, priorities were chosen. The organizations that I know were spared the chopping block do seem to fit these criteria, but so do organizations that had their grants terminated or withdrawn.

Organizations were given seven days to submit an appeal. Most I spoke with chose to appeal. That was in accordance with what arts advocacy groups were recommending. Even if the appeal is not successful, it shows the impact of these cancellations and may help if a lawsuit is brought. Of course, the hope is success. Some appeals I read have a better chance than others. I read one that was based solely on dancing being a way to "make America healthy again," which is probably true, but I’m not sure that is what the NEA general counsel will be looking for. However, other companies and programs seem directly in line with the priorities listed in the email, thus making for a stronger appeal. Chicago Latino Theater Alliance had a $20,000 grant terminated for its Chicago International Latino Theater Festival. New York’s Repertorio Español had a $30,000 grant for its Teatro Acceso education and outreach program terminated. East West Players, based in Los Angeles’ Little Toyko and producing works centering on the Asian American experience, had a $20,000 grant terminated. There are more examples.

Theater Mu in St. Paul—which had a $20,000 grant to support artist fees for the company’s production of Ankita Raturi’s Fifty Boxes of Earth terminated—presents work about the Asian American experience. Managing Director Anh Thu T. Pham expressed some confusion about just what the administration meant by “support the economic development of Asian American communities,” but believes her company fits the bill.

“[Minnesota has a] very young Asian American community and about 54% of our Asian American community identifies as immigrant and refugee,” Pham stated. “So, for us, when we talk about authentic stories with an Asian American lens, for our community and about our community, the value of that to our community is felt in every single production. Not for the audiences alone, but we have heard and seen it from our artists. For people who are not Asian American to come to our show, there are people who are learning about parts of American history that they have never learned before.”

In a decade of increasing xenophobia, Pham noted how important arts that focus on Asian Americans are and, additionally, how crucial NEA funding has been for the company in prior years. She hopes to save this year’s grant, whether or not the hole can be made up by emergency philanthropic funding or not. Theater Mu’s appeal stressed the number of skilled trade workers employed for the production, the number of Asian American artists involved, and the percentage of audience members who are Asian American.

The termination emails did say that organizations could recoup for expenses incurred already or before the termination date. I've heard from a couple of organizations that submitted expenses soon after the emails that they received their funds. (Both of those theaters had grants that began in fiscal year 2024, but it was unclear if that factored into the quick reimbursement or whether it was simply the speed with which they submitted.) Therefore, some theaters that had spent the money but had not yet received reimbursement were hopeful.  Several others I spoke to were trying to accelerate expenses and spend as much as possible before May 31. (This only works out if the grant period started already—a minority of grants do not start their grant period until later in the year. For example, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park had its $40,000 grant for a new Theresa Rebeck play terminated, but the grant period did not begin until August 1, 2025.) Arts organizations are recommending you submit these expenses as soon as possible, but no later than the end of May, even if the email provided a later date, because they fear a cessation of funds. The theaters still having issues with the NEA payment portal are trying to resolve them ASAP, but have yet to receive guidance on how. 

It was hard for those who received termination notices not to think of it as an assault on the arts and what they represent, especially given the rhetoric surrounding President Trump’s Kennedy Center takeover. The move was also made after several arts groups represented by the American Civil Liberties Union brought the administration to court over the administration’s demand that organizations applying for fiscal year 2026 NEA grants (assuming there is a NEA in 2026) certify they will not promote “gender ideology.” However, it’s important to note this type of budgetary slashing is happening across the government. The National Science Foundation has had three waves of grant cancellations; the last one was on May 2.

Impact on Children

As I’ve written in the past, when you reduce theater funding, you impact children and child development. Empirical research has shown that being exposed to, and participating in, the performing arts helps children and their ability to connect and communicate. In current times, most states and cities have cut arts funding to schools, so theater companies have been picking up the slack. Children’s theaters and programs also have a unique fundraising problem that adult theaters do not—they don’t have the same subscribers for twenty-years. Their audience is constantly changing, making consistent funding harder. In other words, children’s theater needs federal support. Yet these NEA terminations impacted several programs targeted at children in red states and blue states.

Birmingham Children’s Theatre first received its $25,000 for the world premiere of the play The Cat Man of Aleppo during the fiscal year 2023, but it was extended through this year due to production scheduling changes. It has now been terminated. Omaha Theater Company (aka The Rose Theater) had two grants terminated, one that began in 2024 for $20,000 and one that began this year for $15,000; both had an element of classroom outreach embedded in the grant project. 

Kids in Concert in Suquamish, Washington saw its grant for $10,000 for a summer musical theater camp for the young—where kids write and act in their own original musical and then perform it for hundreds—canceled.

“We are on tribal land,” explained Kids in Concert Executive Director Christine Edwards. “We have a broad demographic—some 40% or so are tribal kids—and we're very committed to accessibility. A lot of the dynamic of what we do with this theater program is making it possible in a community that would not otherwise have any access to this type of programming.”

Kids in Concert should have a valid appeal based on the NEA’s stated presidential priority to “support Tribal communities,” but, meanwhile, it is out $10,000 for a program that costs only slightly over $20,000. In other words, about half the budget for the program is currently gone. Edwards is still committed to doing it—she obtained a sponsor for it last year and is looking to go that same route now—but it is not a small hole for her.

New Paradigm Theatre in Connecticut had its $10,000 grant for a production of Hairspray, starring children who work alongside professional theater artists, terminated. Kristin Huffman, Producing Artistic Director of New Paradigm, stressed how the program was not simply about training actors, but about creating leaders.

“You’re taking away part of something that will teach leadership and poise and cooperation, all the things the arts give to young people,” she said. “This is $10,000 of what would have been transportation money, what would have been scholarship money. We’re still going to provide that, but it’s going to hit our bottom line.”

Jeff Frank, Executive Artistic Director at First Stage in Wisconsin, is already making changes based on the termination of his company’s $20,000 grant for the creation of Society of Historic Sonic Happenings, an immersive theater and audio experience that was expected to utilize sounds from Milwaukee. The company was still trying to fundraise the other half of the money for the project when the termination email was received. While Frank still hopes to move forward, and will continue to fundraise for the piece, it is currently at a “standstill.” A planned step in the project’s development, the gathering of the sounds to be used, was scheduled for June but has now been put on hold. That is how important that $20,000 was to the company.

Theaters not specifically focused on kids had programs and shows that were intended to benefit children terminated. New York’s IRT Theater had a $15,000 grant terminated for Westside Experiment, a theater program for deaf, hard-of-hearing, and hearing students combined. Think about that—this is a program that reaches out to children with hearing challenges, who may not otherwise be able to easily experience theater, and gives them the joy of creating their own theatrical piece. There is no charge for participation. This program is so clearly beneficial to an underserved community, yet the grant was terminated. The money had already been expended. Fortunately, for IRT and the children the program impacts, Producing Artistic Director Kori Rushton submitted for reimbursement the night the email arrived, and the company has been able to obtain the full $15,000 from the NEA. However, the termination itself is worrisome because, like so many other beneficial programs, this is a program that does not neatly fit within the new NEA stated priorities. IRT was simply lucky they spent the money already. 

Another of the terminated grants was to support Marin Shakespeare Company in producing a Lauren Gunderson adaptation of Rebecca Solnit’s children's book Cinderella Liberator. The company’s Managing Director, Lesley Currier, said the loss of a $20,000 grant wouldn’t stop them, but did worry about the “negative impact across the board” these cuts would have, especially on arts education.

“This generation spent a big chunk of their childhood learning on screens,” she said. “They need the performing arts and the social and emotional intelligence that comes from that. So we’re sorry this happened to us, and we may have to close down some programs if it continues, but we’re more concerned about the arts in general.”

Next Steps

Even before these terminations, arts companies were reeling from a series of setbacks, with many staff members still working on partial pay. I’ve long said that as an industry we’ve done a poor job of communicating theater as a public good, so it’s something that governments and philanthropic organizations have had an easy time cutting. But it is a public good. The arts inform conversations, they teach empathy, they both tell us where we are in the world and yet somehow cause us to step away from where we are and travel somewhere else in our minds. They also contribute economically to their communities.

An easy thing you can do to show you care about the arts is contact your congressional representative, your senator, and the President. Complain to them about the terminations and Trump’s plan to eliminate the NEA entirely. If you are pressed for time, click here for a form letter that will go to your representatives urging them to support NEA and NEH funding for next year. You can even add in a line about the grant cancellations. 

You can also donate. Donate to the companies or programs in this story by clicking on the linked theater names. Donate to other organizations you are attached to. Thankfully, some communities have been responding to the immediate cries of theater companies.

The Contemporary Theater of Ohio had never received a NEA grant previously in its 40-year history, but it received a $10,000 grant for its production of Fat Ham, which was just shy of 1/6th the entire production budget. Before the show started performances on March 6, Executive Director Christy Farnbauch realized they could not submit via the payment portal and went public with that fact. Almost immediately, The Kitchen, a local event and dining space, donated $10,000; then they got another anonymous $10,000 donation to “support free speech,” and people would take money out of their wallets after every performance to chip in. In other words, they received well over $20,000 in place of the $10,000.

Brian Weaver, co-founder of the Portland Playhouse, acted immediately upon receiving the May 2 email and reported that the company raised over $60,000 to make up for the $25,000 terminated grant for August Wilson’s Joe Turner's Come and Gone. Now he is trying to spread the love.

“There’s a new crisis that's coming next week and everybody's going to forget about the arts funding,” he said. “So we launched a GoFundMe account that is to be distributed evenly among all of the Oregon companies that lost funding. It’s about uniting as a state, including the Republican parts of the state, and saying we value this and it's important and we're voting with our $10.” (Donate Here.)

Organizations in other cities and states have similarly banded together. Other companies are waiting until their year-end appeals to discuss it. Some are stressing it during their galas or other previously scheduled fundraising events.

Various philanthropic organizations have stepped in: the Tides Foundation has been great, as has the Mellon Foundation.

We as a theater community also have to think creatively. Just because some theaters have made up their lost NEA grant doesn’t mean the entire shortfall can be replaced or that smaller companies can sustain there being no NEA. This is even though the grants are often small. HERE co-director Lauren Miller, whose company originally received one of the higher NEA grants at $75,000 to put toward a $1.25 million project, perhaps put it best when she said to me that “the money from the NEA is not enough and also it is desperately needed.”

Non-profit theaters, as has been widely publicized, are already struggling. That of course includes theaters that didn’t even get NEA grants. The Billie Holiday Theatre has a long history of NEA funding for its summer intensive program focused around the contributions of Black Americans to the American theater, but for some reason the grant never came through in the first place for 2025, putting that program at risk. The overall fundraising needs of the American theater go beyond just making up for the NEA grants terminated. We’re not going to save the world by making up for one $10,000 grant, but that will help. 

If you can't donate yourself, encourage others to do it. Post about a theater company on social media. Encourage businesses to back theater. Local businesses have recently been turning away from the arts, but if they know how important it is to their community they might change course. It's good business. I'm going to Columbus in the fall and I'm totally going to see if The Kitchen has a public event during that time. 

There is talk about changing the funding and production infrastructure, sure, and those talks should continue, but right now we can raise money to assist struggling companies. There is of course concern that raising money proves that the NEA isn’t necessary, but that fear can’t be as great as the need to help these companies.

Certain theater owners and producers have long been reluctant to allow curtain call speeches for charities other than BC/EFA. I understand that—no one wants companies to be overwhelmed with requests or to feel like you are constantly guilting your audience. But this is our cause. This is to help people experience theater. And I’m pretty sure if someone told a star such as Nicole Scherzinger she could raise enough money to help a few hundred kids experience the magic of making theater by spending a week auctioning off post-show photos, she’d do it.

Even if there were “Email Your Congresspeople” printouts with QR codes inserted into Playbills it could help. Every little thing is a step in the right direction. Some terminated Institute for Museum and Library Services grants were already reinstated. That is because of some type of pressure.

Theater will always happen, with or without this money. But we’ve seen a tremendous downsizing in recent years—a substantial number of theaters have shuttered since the pandemic, in just the last week two theaters in major cities have announced “do or die” campaigns, companies are frequently doing fewer shows—and that hurts the creative landscape. Each blow stings. Just because one show or program can continue without a specific NEA grant doesn’t mean that funding isn’t necessary. We need to all work together to make sure theater remains accessible. Funding is needed.

If you want to discuss what you can do for the arts, you can reach the author at cara@broadwayworld.com.