"The grants fund activities that are partnership projects," said Jason Schupbach, director of design programs for the NEA in Washington, D.C. "It's really about the key arts activities that need to take place that can be part of a broad civic vision for a city, a town, or a tribe." Schupbach said that the NEA has been "amazed" at the level of partnerships in communities.
"This is the second year we've done this grant," Schupbach said. "After the recession in 2007, we wanted to really provide grants that would have economic impact in communities within the arts. The average number of partners per grant is 15, and we have some as high as 38," he said.
The NEA is still in the process of awarding some of the grants, but a number have been sent out. In Highland, N.Y., the North American Cultural Laboratory theater company was granted $50,000 to explore a "conversation about the weather," according to artistic director Tannis Kowalchuk. "We're doing a number of things around a broad conversation revolving around weather and even climate change," she said. "We're not interested in convincing anyone of any particular point of view. What we want is to spur a conversation about these things by using education and research, visual arts, and an outdoor performance."
Kowalchuk said that the NACL's program will begin in 2013 and culminate with a performance in 2014. "It's a big spectacle," she said. "We're going to have large weather balloons that will be painted, music, stage, processional parades -- it's going to encompass a lot."
Highland is in the upper Delaware River valley, which encompasses residents in both New York and Pennsylvania. The area's uniqueness includes a rural atmosphere, with farms and residents who have been there all of their lives, Kowalchuk said. "But it also includes a number of people who moved here from New York City. Art and culture are very much alive here. We'll be hiring people that are local members of the community as well
as professionals."
Peter Ellenstein, an actor and the artistic director of the William Inge Center for the Arts in Independence, Kan., said that the group will create a summer festival for theater and arts in July and August of 2014. The center was awarded a $150,000 Our Town grant by the NEA.
"We'll do a popular show by Inge that fit with a sort of theme of this rural area," Ellenstein said. "But we'll also do a play that perhaps celebrates the history of this town that isn't done as often since Inge was born and lived here. We'll also do two new plays that touch on themes of rural America," he said.
Independence is no stranger to theater festivals. Playwright Inge called the town home, and every year the Inge Center sponsors the William Inge Theatre Festival. "Inge wrote about place and about everyday people struggling. He believed in the power of art to transform people," Ellenstein said.
The grant is perfect for his town, Ellenstein said. "Independence used to be an oil and gas town, and it was a boomtown that was a real economic engine," he said. "But this whole festival is really going to reach out across the community and bring in community members from all over, and Equity and non-Equity actors, intern actors, a high school camp -- we're covering all the bases."
In Arcata, Calif., Jackie Dandeneau of the Arcata Playhouse has partnered with the historical district of the northern California town to create what she's calling a "whimsical distinctive journey through public space." Working with artists of all kinds, an architect, and community members, Dandeneau and her team will build out a full artistic downtown area that culminates in a festival. She said the entire experience will take place in 2013.
The $50,000 NEA grant will help bring in artists from outside the area as well as actors and performers from both the local area and outside to create the experience. "We have a vision of redefining spaces by using the people to work within them," Dandeneau said, "rather than just using the buildings themselves to define the space." For example, there might be a performance piece at the local car wash as well as at the downtown theater, she said.
"We had a large committee evaluate these submissions, and it really was an all-hands-on-deck approach for communities," Schupbach said. "This is part of a complex picture of helping places become livable."
