Fighting Trump’s NEA Cuts One Theater Ticket at a Time
Xzavier Beacham, Bobby Bermea, Lester Purry, Ramona Lisa Alexander, Tessa May, and Ellis-Blake Hale in Portland Playhouse’s production of Joe Turner’s Come and Gone.
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theater usually works, quite reliably, on the notion that history repeats itself. For instance, when the Broadway production of Six came through town recently, it was impossible not to see America’s current president in the petulant King Henry VIII, who changed the course of England’s government over petty personal grievances. Last Friday evening, Trump inserted himself more directly into local theaters, when he took the National Endowment for the Arts’ grant awarding policy into his own hands. This crucial source of federal arts funding would now be awarded “as prioritized by the president.”
“It’s ridiculous,” Brian Weaver, Portland Playhouse’s producing artistic director, told The New York Times. Weaver received an email stating the NEA was rescinding a $25,000 grant from the theater’s production of Joe Turner’s Come and Gone (through June 8), a celebrated August Wilson play about the inner turmoil of former slaves set in Pittsburgh in 1911. The play opened that same night.
Frank Rich, a theater critic known as the “Butcher of Broadway,” lauded the production in The New York Times when it first hit Broadway in 1988. “An American writer in the deepest sense,” he wrote, “August Wilson has once again shown us how in another man’s freedom we find our own.” Yet somehow Wilson’s play, in the eyes of the Trump administration, falls outside of the NEA’s revised goals to “focus funding on projects that reflect the nation’s rich artistic heritage and creativity.”
The next day, Portland Playhouse posted to Instagram asking the community to donate: If 500 people would contribute $50 dollars each, they could replace the grant. They had done exactly that a day later, and Portland Playhouse expanded its goal. Through a campaign called Keep the Story Alive, the company, along with several community organizers, is fundraising to restore the money lost from 27 NEA grants taken from Oregon arts organizations, a figure that may grow as news breaks, and is currently estimated to account for around $600,000. Oregon ArtsWatch has reported extensively on the local effects of the cuts, and has published an action guide for affected grantees.
Though inspiring, the community support is not a signal that NEA funding is unnecessary, but a reminder of the power of a little help from a lot of people. Portland Playhouse said the $25,000 was one fifth of its production budget. The NEA’s funding makes up just 0.003 percent of the federal budget. Since 1965, it’s awarded $5.5 billion in grants.
Trump has already launched similar attacks on the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Institute of Museum and Library Services, severely curtailing modes of expression, and, pointedly, of political dissent. Put plainly: The autonomy of our cultural institutions—museums, libraries, theaters, and all other sorts of arts organizations—are being compromised to instead serve concerns “as prioritized by the president.” How very Henry VIII.
More Things to Do This Week
VISUAL ART Jess Ackerman
5–9PM FRI, MAY 9; THRU JUNE 7 | CHEFAS PROJECTS, FREE
Ackerman’s latest series of paintings, Love Notes from the Lurker, comes after a somewhat brief hiatus. During a recent studio visit, they talked about their whirlwind 2023: how they burned out just as they reached a new level of career success, with two solo shows inside of a few months. And how, after health insurance struggles, those shows came mere weeks before their gender-affirming surgery. Ackerman’s paintings have always carried a melancholic air below their warm and bright hues, towering cakes and delightfully clumsy fruit bowls portending something less joyous. But Lurker, despite its ironically bashful title, embraces that internal struggle head-on.
CHILDREN’S BOOKS Vera Brosgol
2PM SAT, MAY 10 | GREEN BEAN BOOKS, FREE
Brosgol, a former Laika animator whose graphic novel Plain Jane and the Mermaid was on the 2024 best books lists of The New York Times and NPR, makes her prose debut with Return to Sender. In this middle-grade adventure story, Oliver and his mother set out on a new life after a bout of houselessness when an aunt leaves them an apartment and Oliver’s mom gets a custodial job at a private school, landing Oliver free tuition. He envies his classmates’ trendy sneakers and helicopter rides to school until he stumbles upon a magical mail slot in the apartment capable of granting him the same—anything he wishes. He soon learns, however, that his wishes, like all things in life, come at a cost to others. “I wish all stories were as exciting as this one,” Lemony Snicket writes in a blurb. “I wish for a thousand more wishes.”
MUSIC Rahill
8PM SUN, MAY 11 | SHOW BAR AT REVOLUTION HALL, $16+
When founding the band Habibi, in 2011, Rahill Jamalifard created a muscular, reverbed surf rock washed in spellbound, stereo vocals. The indie pop group, whose influence far outstretches its commercial success, expanded over the years around Jamalifard’s Iranian American heritage, fusing garage rock production with Middle Eastern tones, as seen on the band’s latest, Dreamachine, from 2024. In 2023, Rahill, as she’s mononymously known, released her solo debut, Flowers at Your Feet, a deft collage of lo-fi, chopped-up beats with an eclectic mix of influences that reflects her work as a DJ and radio host. One track, “Fables,” features Beck, which signals her respect across the music industry and, in a strange way, gives new listeners some indication of her witty musical collaging. That and it came out on the underground British hip-hop label Big Dada.
Elsewhere…
- Photos from the city’s anti-Trump May Day rallies. (Portland Mercury)
- The premiere of Polyfamily, TLC’s Oregon-set reality show about poly couples. (The Oregonian)
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