For as fun as it is to blame Samuel Phelps (and believe me, I intend to) aren't arts organizations suffering too? The middle class does fund the arts with taxes. And the amount of those taxes going to arts organizations has been slashed in almost every state.
The tradtion of the arts hosting gala benefits for people with with more money to give is an old one. Not a development under the Obama administration. And the arts have overwhelmingly chosen royalty and the wealthy as their subjects. In part because one needs to have a certain bank roll to even produce art in the first place. Secondarily because only these people have had the leisure to have interesting things happen to them.
I've been complaining about elitist benefits for years. Not because I don't think organizations have a right to give donors whatever event it takes to get the funding out of their pocketbooks -- hey, it's fun to go out for that ritzy charity night on the town, isn't it? -- but because it sends a signal of elitism to people that the arts aren't for everyone.
If those organizations are making programming accessible, or other opportunities for people to volunteer and give according to their pay scale, well ... I'm not so sure injustice is being done.
Yes, we're pissed off we don't have the comfort, means, and security of the upper class but is that the fault of arts organizations who rely on funding from individual arts philanthropists? These benefits are usually planned and carried out by a committee of one's peers. Should that assistance be turned down?
The big thing about Jones's argument here that irks me is that he goes from complaining that poor people deserving the same access to cultural experience as wealther Americans then advocates lowering the denominator of that that culture a la NASCAR or American Idol. No. Not the answer.
Is the problem in this story that the people could not relate to the program? No. It's that they didn't get as much bang as they wanted for their buck.
Do we need to make programs people can relate to? Yes. But the Great American Trailer Park Musical, while an entertaining comedy, is no masterpiece.
Are we to stop striving for works of more layered and nuanced genius because they might not appeal to blue collar Americans? Of course not. Not every program is going to appeal to all the people all the time. Let's not limit the diversity of our output people because people are sick of being poor.
Poverty is a huge barrier to people's experience of the arts. And for a lot of reasons beyond the tone of the programming from simple lifestyle logistics to the fact that they are emotionally overwhelmed and exhausted from having to get up every day and fight for the basic elements of survival that other people take for granted.
Where is the great modern drama or symphony about poor people and their struggle? If we made it and it was good would anyone buy a ticket?
-ag
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Message to our cultural organizations: Don't forget the folks on the train - The Theater LoopRavinia had clearly been focused on two distinct populations that night: its high-end donors and the beneficiaries of its grant-friendly programs. That left a lot of hardworking people in the middle. I heard from teachers who had brought their kids; Michiganders who had flown in for a show that turned out to be barely an hour of art; lovers who wanted to linger. Many of them were steamed at paying $125 for a seat or $25 (up recently from $10) for a spot on the grass and then being kicked out while it still was light
Pottsville, Pa., native John O'Hara is best known for his novels Appointment in Samarra and Butterfield 8 and his short stories published in The New Yorker. But he also wrote the book for the musical Pal Joey. A collection of five plays by the author was published in 1961, when O'Hara was living in Princeton, NJ.
This is the last paragraph of his introduction to that collection.
Some, or maybe all, of these plays would have reached Broadway if I had been willing to take writing lessons from directors, but I know of no director whose writing talent I respect. Nor do I know of any director whose contribution to a production will guarantee a hit. Since he cannot guarantee a hit, why not do it your way and succeed or fail on your own? I am tired of hearing about creative directors, creative editors, creative producers, creative hucksters and creative artists' representatives. I worked with one creative director who stole as much of one of these plays as he could, and put it in another play. I worked with another creative producer –director who had just finished his fourth consecutive flop. The director has always been the top guy in Hollywood, for reasons too numerous to go into here; but nowadays on Broadway it is impossible to get a name actor or actress without some director's permission – and participation. No flop is ever blamed on the director, but ever hit adds to the director's prestige. He "got a wonderful performance out of her" or he "finally got a play out of that script." Why do you suppose every Hollywood and Broadway ham, facing a receding hairline and a sagging chin, announces that he is retiring from acting to become a director? Why do so many written-out writers end up as directors? And creative directors, at that. Create something, boys, and I'll direct it for you. But don't create something that Ibsen has already written.
-john o'hara, 1961.
Five Plays by John O'Hara was published by Random House. The collection includes The Farmers Hotel, The Searching Sun, The Champagne Pool, Veronique, and The Way It Was.