Amid a lack of funding in the arts community, Phoenix-based art organizations are seeking new methods to spark interest and support.
This year the arts face drastic cuts in an attempt to balance Arizona’s budget, said Bob Booker, executive director at Arizona Commission on the Arts.
The cuts included the remains of a $20 million endowment, which had supported grants and workshops to better the arts in the state.
At a local level, there has also been support from grassroots movements attempting to bolster the arts in their communities.
To show their support, Booker said, he has seen many individuals step forward and reach out to officials about the value of arts in their community. Citizens have sent letters and arranged meetings.
But leaders in the arts community think more than letters and conversations are needed for the arts in Phoenix to continue.
“We know there is more audience out there for us,” Erica Black, managing director at Actors Theatre of Phoenix, said. “We just have to find them in this very spread-out Valley.”
Some arts organizations have reached out via social media, a method that has been successful for Actors Theatre, Black said.
The Arizona Commission on the Arts Facebook site has over 6,000 likes, the third largest number of any state arts agency in the country, behind the pages for California and Washington, D.C.’s agencies, according to Booker.
Dependency on federal and state funding is something that Jim Ward, president and CEO of the Phoenix Symphony, said the arts community needs to veer away from.
Federal money accounts for only 2 to 3 percent of the funding for the symphony, which is a main reason why the cuts have not hurt the organization as much, Ward said.
Still, the past few years have not been easy.
The symphony underwent large budget cuts and management restructuring in 2011 to make the company more efficient.
The symphony also released a new narrative on the mission and vision they provide to the Phoenix community, which has increased support as a result, Ward said.
The biggest impact the symphony has seen is ticket sales.
Although subscriptions to the symphony have decreased recently, single ticket sales have increased. Ward said concert-goers are less likely to spend more money for a subscription, given the state of the economy.
The Actors Theatre has also found aid from a place Black believes Phoenix’s arts are going to survive on: contributions from individual patrons.
Two local music icons, Dennis Rowland and Walt Richardson, headlined a concert for the theater which proved to be a great success for drawing both attendees and money, Black said.
The theater also plans to add a summer season to expand its community outreach.
To kick off the program, Actors Theater teamed up with the state’s centennial celebration, which recognized the theater’s production of “The Wallace and Ladmo Show” as a part of their celebration, Black said.
These events are all part of a larger goal to raise $500,000 by June 30 to keep the theater open.
The three-part fundraiser has proven successful so far. The theater is on its final effort to raise $260,000 after an extremely successful first leg and nearly reaching the goal for the second leg, Black said.
This week House Bill 2265, which would reauthorize the Arizona Commission on the Arts, is under sunset review in the state Senate after passing the House, Booker said.
If the bill had failed, the loss of the commission would have taken with it the attention of politicians as well as the commission’s funds, said Catherine “Rusty” Foley, executive director for Arizona Citizens for the Arts.
“There are some signs of optimism,” Foley said. “But, we’ve got a lot of work to do to rebuild the arts community in this state.”
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