Theater Q has put its current season on hold.
When we last visited Theater Q at Asbury Park in October, the new LGBTQ+ company was preparing to premiere its first production, “Zanna Don’t — The Reboot!,” at House of Independents.
John Pantozzi, the theater’s executive artistic director and producer, was excited to start the company’s inaugural season, having raised enough capital to begin establishing Theater Q as a legitimate member of the state’s vibrant theater community.
At least that’s what he thought.
Then came the November presidential election, and the phone calls started coming in from donors either withdrawing their commitments or expressing fear to publicly support an LGBTQ+ theater company.
Call it The Attack of the DEI Demons, a truly scary show coming very soon to your neighborhood theater.
All of a sudden arts organizations with mission statements that tout diversity, equity and inclusion — which is pretty much every arts organization — can forget about securing federal funding equal to past disbursements, or any funding at all. Add to that the fear donors are showing about being tied in any public way to the principles of diversity, and you have a big fat problem trying to keep the stage lights on.
“If you come in with anything that’s DEI, you’re not going to be recognized. Your application (for funding) is going to be rejected,” says Pontozzi. “And now we’re all looking to make up that funding as donations shrink because of fear and a bad economic environment.”
Translation: Everyone is jumping into the same draining pool of donors.
For Theater Q, the fallout was immediate. Pontozzi recently announced that the company is pushing the remainder of its first season into the fall, citing the “lost commitment of select donors” because of the current “sociopolitical and economic uncertainty.”
And in truth, he’s not sure that even a five- or six-month postponement will be enough time to amass the kind of money that will put Theater Q on a solid enough path to sustain at least two full seasons.
DAVID KENAS
Theater Q artistic director John Pantozzi, third from left, with “Zanna Don’t — The Reboot!” creator Tim Acito, seated, and “Zanna Don’t” cast and crew members.
“ ‘Zanna’ was an enormous success,” says Pantozzi. “Saturday night was sold out. There was a line around the block. But it takes around $65,000 to do a show here. Now it’s going to take individuals — the wealthy class, people who believe in the goals — for support.” And that’s not a guarantee.
“So yes, I’m frustrated. I have my days where I just want to give up. At age 68 I say to myself, ‘Just enjoy what you have left.’ But we’re not building a theater company to just put on some sparkly lights. We have a new second layer of importance. So we’re not going anywhere, and we’re not going to hide.”
Pantozzi’s sentiments are echoing across the state as scores of theaters and arts nonprofits are fearful of what comes next. Or, more accurately, what will not come: government money.
For example, Luna Stage in West Orange recently added a donation pop-up to its website, announcing its continued commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility while explaining that changes in federal funding policies has caused a budget shortfall of about 10 percent. And Princeton University Concerts has announced that the National Endowment for the Arts has rescinded its grant in support of PUC’s “Healing With Music” series, due to “updated funding priorities.”
“How this is all going to play out has yet to be determined,” says John McEwen, executive director of the New Jersey Theatre Alliance, a service organization for all professional nonprofit theaters in the state. “Many of us have grants in to the National Endowment of the Arts, which we submitted more than a year ago before these new (DEI) guidelines and conversations were occurring. Normally we would have heard about those grants by now. And we’ve been told they are not sure when they will be making an announcement.”
The question remaining for many arts organizations is: Will the NEA award these grants under the old or new guidelines?
Forty percent of National Endowment of the Arts funds are distributed through state arts councils, according to McEwen. New Jersey’s share, granted through the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, is more than $1 million.
“We are very fortunate in New Jersey to have strong appropriation for the state arts community,” says McEwen. “And we thank Gov. Murphy and his administration for their support through appropriation and the hotel/motel tax. The governor doubled the state arts council’s budget to a little over $32 million. That is an enormous demonstration of how this administration values the arts in our state. So of course, moving forward, we want to ensure that New Jersey’s position as an arts leader, incubator and supporter is maintained.
Princeton University Concerts has posted this message to Instagram.
But it is clear that going forward will not be easy, mostly because no one knows where the road is headed.
“There’s panic because there’s uncertainty,” says McEwen. “And when you have uncertainty, you don’t know what to do with the information. It’s a moving target and it’s very hard to plan. It impacts programming, the individuals who benefit from the programming, the artists who you contract to do programming. It all has a ripple effect and it’s unnerving.
“What I do know is that the Alliance and the industry are not going back on our core values. We’re all in this wait-and-see mode. There are no laws being passed. It’s all executive orders. It’s conversation. So organizations are sticking to their core values and sticking to their programming and missions.
“We need to continue to speak with our elected officials and consistently demonstrate the value of the arts and how it’s a huge economic driver in our state and across the nation.”
On a personal level, McEwen sees the arts as a way to bring people together in a society that seems to be drifting further apart.
“We see the arts as a wonderful way to celebrate and uplift humanity,” he says. “Whether it’s storytelling, a visual, a painting, a poem, a piece of music … arts lifts and humanizes us, strengthens us as individuals within our community. It’s a wonderful way to build awareness and say, ‘You know what? Maybe through the arts you can see a different point of view.’ It doesn’t mean you need to be the same. But at the core we’re all human beings. We all want the same things out of life. The arts celebrate that and show how we’re more alike than we are different. And when that’s being questioned and threatened, it’s sad and it’s concerning.”
Pantozzi doesn’t mind getting personal about the subject either.
“I like to think everything I did in my life helped build to where we are now,” he says. “So yes, I take what’s happening personally. Theater Q represents a safe space. If you want to enjoy some entertainment that isn’t going to put you at risk for attending, this is the place to come.”
He only hopes that Theater Q’s doors will once again be able to open wide and fulfill that promise.
For information and updates, visit theaterq.org.
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