FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: February 14, 2022 || CONTACTS: Corinna Schulenburg | cschulenburg@tcg.org | 212-609-5941
Theatre Communications Group Receives Support from
National Endowment for the Arts
NEA to award grants totaling $57,750,000 to 567 arts organizations
New York, NY – Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national organization for theatre, is pleased to announce they have been approved to receive an American Rescue Plan grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) to help the arts and cultural sector recover from the pandemic. TCG is recommended to receive $150,000 and may use this funding to save jobs and to fund operations and facilities, health and safety supplies, and marketing and promotional efforts to encourage attendance and participation. Grants have been recommended to organizations in both rural and urban communities; in all 50 states, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Washington, DC; and represent all 15 of the NEA’s artistic disciplines. Among the recommended organizations, 27 percent are first-time NEA grantees and 78 percent are small or medium sized organizations with budgets of less than $2 million.
“Our nation’s arts sector has been among the hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. The National Endowment for the Arts’ American Rescue Plan funding will help arts organizations rebuild and reopen,” said Dr. Maria Rosario Jackson, chair of the NEA. “The arts are crucial to helping America’s communities heal, unite, and inspire as well as essential to our nation’s economic recovery.”
“When the pandemic hit, we quickly realized two things: first, that our field would face catastrophic revenue loss; and second, that we needed our collective power more than ever,” said Teresa Eyring, executive director and CEO, TCG. “We then made a series of values-based decisions to remove barriers to accessing our programs and services, offering more than 50 hours of free programming in 2021 alone. We were also on the front lines of advocating for the largest federal investment in the arts since the WPA in the 1930s. With this funding from the NEA, we can continue to offer urgent and accessible programming, such as our series of COVID-19 webinars with public health professionals. The NEA’s commitment to supporting small and mid-sized arts organizations, many for the first time, is also a welcome step toward equitable funding. Yet we know that with the Omicron variant cancelling performances and postponing shows, the need for robust federal funding for theatres and theatre-makers remains critical. We’re staying focused on tangible advocacy opportunities, such as retroactively reinstating ERTC for the fourth quarter, accessing the remaining $2 billion in SVOG funds, and exploring emerging opportunities in FEMA funding.”
The American Rescue Plan was signed into law in March 2021 when the NEA was provided $135 million for the arts sector. The funding for organizations is the third installment providing more than $57.7 million for arts organizations. In April 2021, the NEA announced $52 million (40 percent) in ARP funding would be allocated to 62 state, jurisdictional, and regional arts organizations for regranting through their respective programs. The second installment in November 2021 allocated $20.2 million to 66 local arts agencies for subgranting to local artists and art organizations.
For more information on the NEA’s American Rescue Plan grants, including the full list of arts organizations funded in this announcement, visit www.arts.gov/COVID-19/the-american-rescue-plan.
Established by Congress in 1965, the National Endowment for the Arts is the independent federal agency whose funding and support gives Americans the opportunity to participate in the arts, exercise their imaginations, and develop their creative capacities. Through partnerships with state arts agencies, local leaders, other federal agencies, and the philanthropic sector, the NEA supports arts learning, affirms and celebrates America’s rich and diverse cultural heritage, and extends its work to promote equal access to the arts in every community across America. For more information, visit www.arts.gov.
Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national organization for theatre, leads for a just and thriving theatre ecology. Since its founding in 1961, TCG’s constituency has grown from a handful of groundbreaking theatres to over 700 Member Theatres and affiliate organizations and over 7,000 Individual Members. Through its programs and services, TCG reaches over one million students, audience members, and theatre professionals each year. TCG offers networking and knowledge-building opportunities through research, communications, and events, including the annual TCG National Conference, one of the largest nationwide gatherings of theatre people; awards grants and scholarships to theatre companies and individual artists; advocates on the federal level; and through the Global Theater Initiative, TCG's partnership with the Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics, serves as the U.S. Center of the International Theatre Institute. TCG is North America’s largest independent trade publisher of dramatic literature, with 18 Pulitzer Prizes for Drama on the TCG booklist. It also publishes the award-winning American Theatre magazine and ARTSEARCH®, the essential source for a career in the arts. TCG believes its vision of “a better world for theatre, and a better world because of theatre” can be achieved through individual and collective action, adaptive and responsive leadership, and equitable representation in all areas of practice. TCG is led by executive director and CEO Teresa Eyring and deputy director and COO Adrian Budhu. www.tcg.org.
# # #