Out of early planning grew Richmond’s Alliance for the Performing Arts. The Alliance… currently has more than 30 local performing-arts organizations as members. The more visible organizations include the Richmond Symphony, the Richmond Ballet, the Carpenter Center, and the Virginia Opera. Our members also include Encore Theater, the Richmond Alliance of Professional Theatres (RAPT), the School of the Performing Arts in the Richmond Community (SPARC), the Elegba Folklore Society, Ernie McClintock’s Jazz Actors Theatre, Theatre IV, Barksdale Theatre, Living Word Stage Company, and many more. Jerrold Samford of the Alliance For the Performing Arts, Aug. 2005 [Emphasis mine]
“Please dont think the Richmond Symphony and the Living Word Stage Company are equal partners in this boondoggle, folks.”– some blogger guy, Aug. 2005
Four arts organizations affected by the closing of the Carpenter Center which may not reopen until 2009 will probably be getting heavy handouts from City Council and corporate sources to keep them going… The money would come from the 1 percent meals tax that was originally instituted to pay for the performing arts center…” Style Weekly, May 2006 [Emphasis mine]
It’s nice to see that they care, but can anyone explain why city council would consider limiting their “handouts” of meals tax money to four groups only: The Richmond Symphony, Richmond Ballet, Virginia Opera and Theatre IV? No offense to those talented companies but, as Mr. Samford says above, The Alliance For the Performing Arts (APA) “currently has more than 30 local performing-arts organizations as members,” not just four.
Whatever you think about the plan that the higher meals tax was slated to fund, the theoretical idea was to support stages, and provide resources, for all of the city’s affiliated arts groups. At least that’s what Save Richmond was told, time and time again, when we pointed out that the Virginia Performing Arts Foundation’s proposal was unworkable, unfair to taxpayers, systemically elitist and would end up hurting not helping the city’s non-profit arts companies.
The smaller arts groups affliliated with the APA were sure front and center, preaching unity and togetherness, when it came to arguing for the meals tax hike:
“The one percent meals tax increase is the best plan. Patrons will not have a problem paying it. I won’t, and I eat out a lot” Grant Mudge, artistic director for the Encore Theater Company, July 2003
Janine Bell, Director of the Elegba Folklore Society, says the decision to relocate its headquarters to the Performing Arts Center in 2007 was based on a shared mission with the VPAF. “One of the missions of the Performing Arts Center is to celebrate diversity in the performing arts audiences.” “Out With a Bang,” Richmond.com, June 2004
I am completely convinced that this is not an elitist group. That– that this is not to– to support just the symphony and the ballet and the opera, although they totally need support, because they are incredible institutions, and we should be glad and proud to have them in our community. But this is about Living Word Stage Company. This is about the Jazz Society. This is about bringing people of different races and different backgrounds and different ages together to do things downtown, which will simply be a catalyst to other things that can go on. Rick Tatnall, Managing director, Living Word Stage Company, Times-Dispatch Public Square, Oct. 2005
But that was yesterday. Who do we credit with the new plan to reward the four biggest Richmond arts groups while leaving the rest behind? Why, only that little ol’ city councilman currently on a crusade to stop nightclubs from opening in his district the same civic bagboy who installed himself as a board member on both Richmond’s Arts & Cultural Funding Consortium and The Virginia Performing Arts Foundation:
Councilman Bill Pantele has proposed a one-time appropriation of $100,000 to match private donations to the four groups: the Richmond Symphony, the Virginia Opera, Theatre IV and the Richmond Ballet.
I think its just common sense that this kind of gypsy existence that theyve been forced to lead has been extremely difficult on them and, alternatively, very disappointing, Pantele says.
$100,000 might be a relatively small sum to divvy up. But how many times have we all heard of the fragile nature of Richmond’s smaller arts groups? How many passionate arguments have been made in the service of the lesser-known theatre companies and folklife societies? These entities, it was claimed, needed the money most of all:
It has always been about the arts, and about a community embracing its art. And about creating a place where the hopes and dreams of a community could be played out. The late Ernie McClintock would have agreed with this– he hoped that it would be a home for the Black Repertory Theater, like the one he had directed in New York City. Stephanie Micas, former Richmond Arts Council Director, Times-Dispatch Public Square, Oct. 2005
… and on how many occasions have we been told that the VAPAF’s music hall would not be “elitist” and would not exclusively serve the SOBs (Symphony-Opera-Ballet)?
Suggestions that the Performing Arts Center project suffers from inadequate planning and serves only the elite simply are not true. Jerrold Samford of the Alliance For the Performing Arts, Aug. 2005
“One of the most exciting things about this performing arts center is the chance to be in the same place with the Elegba Folklore Society, with the Jazz Actors Theater, with the Jazz Club. It’s not just about the big organizations - and if I hear the word “Elitist” again I’m going to spit.” David Fisk of Richmond Symphony, Times-Dispatch Public Square, Oct. 2005 [Emphasis mine]
Richmond’s officially-sanctioned cultural funding consortiums would have you believe that The Philharmonic is playing Gustav Mahler in abject squalor!” But consider this fact: Not having a VAPAF-approved downtown music hall has actually helped one “emergency” fundee, the Richmond Symphony.
The symphony found more success raising money this year than last, says Executive Director David Fisk, from selling more tickets for concerts now held in churches and from donations, including $250,000 from an anonymous benefactor. But moving around is expensive, he says. Collaborating with the other arts groups to raise extra money, Fisk says, will help ensure that in the end, in 2009, we have healthy organizations and healthy buildings. Style Weekly, May 2006
How the banding-together of the Symphony, Opera, Ballet and Theatre IV will benefit everybody’s favorite namechecked group, Ernie McClintock’s Jazz Actor’s Theatre a company living a true “gypsy existence” that hasn’t had a “healthy building” to perform in for years is left up to our collective imagination. But lest Jazz Actor’s Theatre, Encore, Living Word, Elegba, SPARC or any of the other smaller groups get their hopes up, they should understand that Pantele’s targeted funding is a one-time payoff.
Maybe the councilman feels guilty for decisions he’s made in the past, but releasing meals tax funds selectively, and to only the largest of the arts groups, is tantamount to admitting that the original tax hike and all the mumbo-jumbo about “diversity” and shared missions was just an insider’s con game; city and state taxpayers remain the gullible marks (and, yes, since Pantele is on the Richmond Arts Council’s cultural funding board, as well as VAPAF’s executive committee, not to mention city council, I daresay he has more than enough power to propose spreading this money around fairly).
Whatever happens, the true pecking order of the Alliance For the Performing Arts has finally been revealed for all to see. And the cold hard truth is nothing to spit at.
