TESTIMONY
Risa Shoup, Co-Executive Director of the Alliance of Resident Theatres New York, on the Importance of Funding for Arts and Culture Organizations in New York City
4:09:35
·
178 sec
Shoup emphasizes the vital role of arts and culture in making New York City a desirable place to live, work, and visit.
- They call for restoring fiscal year 2024 budget cuts to the Cultural Development Fund (CDF) and Cultural Institutions Group (CIG)
- Shoup requests increasing the Department of Cultural Affairs' funding to $76 million for fiscal year 2025
- They share an example of how a member theater connects immigrant youth to mental health resources through arts programs
- Shoup highlights the negative impacts of recent CDF funding cuts on staffing, artist pay, and programming capacity at arts organizations
Risa Shoup
4:09:35
Thank you, Chair Brennan, Chair Rivera, and council member brewer, and everyone who's here for this time.
4:09:40
My name is Risa Shupe.
4:09:41
I am a co executive director of the Alliance of Resident Theater's New York.
4:09:44
I represent over 450 theaters and over a 150 individual practitioners all work based in New York City, and I'm a member with Lisa of the Cultural Equity Coalition.
4:09:56
A budget is a statement of values, and we are asking that New York City show up for arts and culture and for our communities.
4:10:02
Thank you, council members, for your historic and unwavering support for arts and culture.
4:10:07
Thank you for the $76,000,000 request for funding for DCLA and FY 25.
4:10:13
We are calling on this administration to commit to restoring FY 24 cuts for both the CDF and the CIGs and to increase DCLA's funding in the next fiscal year to $53,000,000 for a total as you've asked for of $76,000,000.
4:10:30
New York City is a great place to live and to work and to visit because of arts and culture, and we must maintain that if we want to keep this city strong.
4:10:38
I wanna share a story with you right now about one of my member theaters, The People's Theater Project, who couldn't be here for today.
4:10:44
People's Theater Project works in service with immigrant artists from their home base.
4:10:48
In Inwood.
4:10:49
Their young immigrant artists continue to struggle with mental health challenges.
4:10:54
Several have been admitted to the hospital this year.
4:10:57
And PTP's youth and family advocate has been a key link in connecting these youth with their and their families to resources and support.
4:11:06
So when you invest in arts and culture, you are not just investing in wonderful plays and paintings, you are investing in healthy communities and strong families.
4:11:15
PTP, like many of art New York's members, our grantees of DCLA's cultural development fund.
4:11:21
Most of us do not have access to wealthy donors and private philanthropic institutions.
4:11:26
We proudly produce public programs, and we rely on public funding to do so.
4:11:32
This year, the CDF cuts were devastating.
4:11:36
Art New York worked together with Dance NYC outside of our regular services to administer an impact survey so that we could actually see what are the magnitude of these cuts across organizations.
4:11:48
I've shared these results with you, and I'm happy to do so again.
4:11:51
And I just wanna end by reading one of the testimonies from our survey due to the lateness of the award and the funding we have had and the funding cuts We have had cash flow issues making payroll, paying artists, and paying bills, and we've had to limit the number of artists in our shows and the number of programs that we can provide to the public.
4:12:10
This lower award amount, as well as as well as the loss of a multiyear award, will negatively affect our staffing, artist pay, and capacity for several years.
4:12:22
So this increase of $76,000,000 in FY20 5 will help stabilize this group for years to come and many others like it and our city with that.
4:12:31
Thank you so much.
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Judith Insell, Executive Director of the Bronx Arts Ensemble, on the Need for Increased Funding for Community Arts and Cultural Programming in the Bronx
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Dohini Sompura, Director of Governmental Affairs at the American Museum of Natural History, on Increasing Operational Funding for Cultural Institutions in New York City
