Marin Shakespeare Company responds to the NEA grant terminations
Monday, May 4, 2025
Dear Friends,
Over the weekend, Marin Shakespeare Company was notified that we are one of the arts organizations whose previously awarded grant is being Terminated by the National Endowment for the Arts. The notice read in part: “The NEA is updating its grantmaking policy priorities to focus funding on projects that reflect the nation’s rich artistic heritage and creativity as prioritized by the President….The NEA will now prioritize projects that…celebrate the 250th anniversary of American independence”.
Over the past days we have learned about many other arts organizations who have had previously awarded grants terminated as well. We also learned that the President’s “skinny budget” calls for the elimination of the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Today we are hearing that NEA employees have been offered the opportunity to resign or retire with benefits, and many are accepting that offer.
This news is disturbing for many reasons.
We believe that creative expression through the arts is a hallmark of a free, democratic society. The arts help us explore deeply our shared humanity, our compassion for people who are different from ourselves, and our beliefs about complex societal questions. The arts practice, promote, and preach free expression and free speech.
Regimes throughout history have used the arts for “patriotic” propaganda in efforts to install totalitarian governments, to instill a sole allowable way of thinking. This propaganda has helped legitimize legal discrimination, and worse.
40% of the National Endowment for the Arts’ budget goes directly to state arts agencies, who would be greatly impacted by the elimination of the NEA. In California alone, hundreds of arts organizations would be negatively effected, further reducing free expression, arts education programs, and the healing benefits of the arts. Individually, the loss of NEA funding for each arts organization is a blow. Collectively, the loss of funding for the arts nationally and in the states is a serious threat to our democracy.
Marin Shakespeare Company’s now-terminated $20,000 grant was originally awarded to commission a new play with music by Lauren Gunderson, one of the most produced playwrights in America, known for her sharp wit and commitment to centering women’s voices. The production was to be based on Cinderella: Liberator, a groundbreaking children’s book by acclaimed writer, historian, and activist Rebecca Solnit. Gunderson and Solnit have been working together to bring to the stage this story of self-determination, kindness, and the power of choosing one’s own destiny, offering community a narrative where liberation comes from within rather than from a prince.
We will work with renewed vigor to find the support we need for this project. We welcome your help.
We will keep you updated about the state of the arts. We encourage you to enjoy the arts while we still have them — see a play, take a class, make a donation, join an arts Board. In the meantime, we invite you to the final two performances of Jon Tracy’s gender-inclusive Romeo / Juliet this coming Friday and Saturday May 9 and 10 at 7:30 pm, Lisa Wolpe’s Shakespeare and the Alchemy of Gender this coming Saturday May 10 at 2:00 pm, and — hopefully — many more events and performances to come.
Lesley Currier, Managing Director | Jon Tracy, Artistic Director
