CT theaters scrambling after NEA grants are rescinded as Trump looks to eliminate the agency

Yahoo

07-05-2025

Several major Connecticut theaters were abruptly informed that National Endowment for the Arts grants, which had already been awarded, were rescinded.
'This is to inform you that the above referenced National Endowment for the Arts award has been terminated, effective May 31, 2025,' the letter reads. 'The NEA is updating its grant making policy priorities to focus funding on projects that reflect the nation's rich artistic heritage and creativity as prioritized by the president. Consequently, we are terminating awards that fall outside these new priorities.'
Goodspeed Musicals in East Haddam lost a $60,000 NEA grant it had received to develop a promising new musical they'd been involved with for years, 'Little Miss Perfect.'
The Oddfellows Playhouse in Middletown, one of the leading youth theater programs in the state since the mid-1970s, will no longer receive $10,000 meant to support an original theater project about issues confronting high school youth from underserved communities.
Other affected theaters in the state include the Yale Repertory Theater, which had been awarded $30,000 for a new stage adaptation of Nora Zeale Hurston's 1925 short story 'Spunk,' the Long Wharf Theatre, based in New Haven, and the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Waterford. All these theaters have been around for a half century or more and are nationally renowned for fostering new works for the American theater.
'Friday night we got an email, at 8:37 p.m., that our award had been terminated,' said Goodspeed's artistic director Donna Lynn Hilton. 'I know of many other theaters in the country that received similar notices.'
Hilton said the theater had already spent some of the grant money. 'To their credit, they say in the letter that we can submit our costs and may be reimbursed,' she said.
'Little Miss Perfect,' which grew out of a viral hit song by Joriah Kwamé, was presented by Goodspeed Musicals first as a cabaret performance where Kwamé showcased songs he was working on for the project. The show was then given a full-length staged reading as part of the Goodspeed Festival of New Musicals. The NEA funding was designated to help Goodspeed present a full production of the show in 2026.
Hilton said she was in the process of deciding whether to stage the show at the Goodspeed Opera House or at Goodspeed's smaller Terris Theatre space in Chester when she heard the grant had been rescinded.
Oddfellows Playhouse executive artistic director Dic Wheeler said he was in Maryland attending a national conference held by Theatre for Young Audiences, an organization that represents over 1,400 companies that produce theater for children and families, a day after they learned that their $10,000 'Challenge America' grant had been rescinded.
'On the first day, there was a leadership summit with about 40 people in the room. They asked 'How many of you got a letter from the NEA?' and half the room put their hands up,' Wheeler said.
The Oddfellows show that the grant supported is an original performance piece based on the writings of young people in Middletown's Maplewood Terrace public housing project.
'This was specifically about bringing the arts to underserved communities,' Wheeler said.
Wheeler applied for a 'Challenge America' grant from the NEA around a year ago. In December, Oddfellows Playhouse learned that the grant had been approved, and in January, the NEA publicly announced the recipients. Wheeler said Oddfellows had been waiting for the money to arrive and began to understand the reason for the delays when the new presidential administration made announcements about the future of both the NEA and another federal agency, the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Some of the theaters whose grants were rescinded said they had received NEA funding numerous times in the past without incident.
'It's not unusual for the Goodspeed to receive an NEA grant every three to five years,' said Hilton. 'I can't remember an NEA grant ever being rescinded before now. If any changes had to be made before, they were always willing to work with the theaters. This is highly unusual on the part of the NEA. We had all accepted that, moving forward, we would probably not be receiving NEA funding. But we had not anticipated that the support that had already been promised would be rescinded.'
'It's unprecedented,' said James Bundy, artistic director of the Yale Repertory Theatre and dean of the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale. Yale Rep received 'many, many' NEA grants in his 23 years as its leader and Bundy said he is 'not aware of any grants before now that were rescinded.'
Bundy pointed out that the notices that the grants were rescinded came out on the same day people learned that the government is planning to eliminate the NEA altogether.
'I'm less worried about the Yale Repertory Theatre than I am about our colleagues throughout the nation. I'm concerned that this highly effective agency will no longer exist,' he said.
Bundy sent a lengthy letter to the drama school community in which he quotes Presidents John F. Kennedy and RIchard Nixon on the importance of arts funding and suggests that 'NEA grants are extraordinarily efficient: Just .0003% of the Federal budget jumpstarts the arts, culture, and entertainment industry, which contributes $1.2 trillion to the US economy' and that 'far from being a bastion of elitism, the NEA provides broad support for arts programming and education that reaches millions of children, people living in areas with high poverty rates, and veterans.'
The affected theaters are being given seven days to appeal the rescinding of the grants, but they would have to show that they fit the newly announced NEA priorities, which were not in place when the original grants were awarded.
The letter rescinding the grants states that 'the NEA will now prioritize 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.'
'I really want to appeal because I feel we should be pushing back, but I can't see where our project fits the new criteria,' Wheeler said. 'It's not about elevating HBCUs. It's not about the 250th anniversary.'
Bundy concurs.
'The new priorities are written in such a way as to eliminate our chance to appeal,' he said.
Hilton suspects that 'many of the stories terminated appear to be about the LGBTQ community.' This is the case, she feels, with 'Little Miss Perfect,' which has themes of personality identity, social pressure and coming-of-age issues. In January, Trump issued an executive order titled 'Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government' stating that 'Federal funds shall not be used to promote gender ideology.'
The NEA issued its own statement that while its 'existing multi-tiered application review process will remain unchanged,' the NEA would be re-evaluating existing grant applications based on the executive order.
The larger theaters who had their grants rescinded believe they should be able to find other funding for the affected projects and plan to proceed on schedule. But Wheeler at Oddfellows Playhouse said the Maplewood Terrace performance will have to wait.
'We will probably postpone it until next season,' he said. 'We have to find another way to fund it. The most heartbreaking thing about is that it was intended for the kids who need it the most.'
On Wednesday, the annual Arts, Culture and Tourism Advocacy Day will be held in the Connecticut State Capitol. The gathering is promoted by the Connecticut Arts Alliance as a 'chance to show legislators how vibrant and important our sector is to the state,' according to a release from Jacques Lamarre, chief creative office for the marketing firm Buzz Engine, a well-known local playwright and a board member of Connecticut Humanities.
This year's ACT Advocacy Day will also be a reaction to the Trump administration's proposal that the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Institute of Museum and Library Sciences all be totally eliminated. The plight of the theaters will be discussed as well as funding cuts to organizations throughout the state.
'Essential funding for arts, humanities, museums and libraries institutions and umbrella organizations has been stripped back,' Lamarre stated in the release. 'You can see how this is devastating on a national, statewide, regional and local level.'