NEA and BCT
Dear Friends,
Last Friday night Birmingham Children’s Theatre, like so many arts organizations across this country, received an email from the National Endowment for the Arts saying our current grant agreement has been terminated.
This news is heartbreaking. This wasn’t just a line in an email. It was the loss of critical support for a project already underway. And we’re not alone. Our friends and partners at the Alabama Humanities Alliance are facing similar cuts, alongside other performing arts groups, public libraries, and children’s education programs nationwide.
Why do we make art?
It’s as old as humanity. We tell our life stories through art, our experiences, our histories. We live in and amongst art every day, and it's so ingrained in parts of our culture that I’m not sure we recognize it as art as often as we should. And because it’s everywhere, we forget how vital it is until it’s threatened. Or gone.
So many of you in our community grew up at BCT – I hear it all the time. I hope you look back at those memories with joy and childlike wonder. You may be able to pinpoint how they impacted you, but if not, here’s a short list of what I know from a combination of research in the field and day to day lived experiences seeing the tens of thousands of children who come through our doors each year:
Art gives voice to feelings kids can’t yet name.
Making and experiencing art can reduce stress, anxiety, and symptoms of depression.
Creating art boosts confidence and provides a sense of achievement.
Witnessing art enhances cognitive development by exercising active attention, critical thinking, pattern recognition, and imagination. In short, it lights up your brain.
Theatre creates safe spaces for moral and emotional exploration, letting us confront complex issues in a non-threatening setting.
Participating in group arts activities - even sitting in an audience at the theatre - builds connections, a sense of belonging, and shared purpose.
Storytelling, theatre, and visual arts deepen understanding of others’ experiences, cultures, and emotions – we foster empathy, respect, and kindness
Art isn’t extra. It's essential.
Every single child who is touched by the arts benefits from that experience. When we compound the number of arts experiences, the impact of those experiences grows within them. And it is not good enough to recycle through centuries-old fairy tales that don’t have relevance to what their lives look like today. Every single show you have seen and loved was new at some time. It started in a playwright’s brain. It takes time and funding to take those ideas out of their brain and put them to paper, and into the hands of a director and creative team. To build the designs on stage and rehearse with the actors. To gather the audiences and deliver the performances and discover that you’ve made something that may be lasting. Or it will at least have a lasting impact on those who experienced it.
These grant cuts don’t just take away resources already promised. They cancel the future – the new work we were preparing to share, the stories still waiting to be told. But more alarming are the threats to shut down the National Endowment for the Arts permanently. A significant portion of their work is about allocating funds to state agencies who in turn support our local arts groups. Including BCT.
