Making Art Pay For Art

I just finished Lewis Hyde's The Gift over the weekend (I also read Paul Hornschemeier's amazing and beautiful and tragic Mother Come Home which you should go out and read right now).  In the end, in a new postscript to the 25th anniversary edition, Hyde tries to address himself to the current arts funding climate, a discussion he mainly avoids in The Gift for the purpose of keeping the book timeless.

The chapter is amazing. Besides detailing the CIA's bizarre brief love affair with arts funding, he talks about the Cold War roots of the NEA (which is essential to understanding how it works and why but is a topic for another day) and then talks about the current era of arts funding. And he hits upon an idea: Is it possible to make art pay for art? Not (And this is an important distinction) make art pay for itself, which means subjecting it to the market that it is ill-equipped to survive on, but rather to pay for other art?

He brings up a brilliant idea by Senator Chris Dodd in 1994 involving copyright.  Copyright, you may remember, used to be limited to the life of the author + fifty years.  Dodd hit upon an idea: What if, when those fifty years were up, the State auctioned off a twenty year extension to the copyright and those funds then went to fund arts endowments?  In other words, if Disney wanted to keep Mickey Mouse its exclusive property, let it outbid a Saudi Prince or two (or maybe Michael Jackson) and then let the resulting funds go to fund the next generation of culture and artists.

Pretty awesome. It also never happened.  After intense lobbying, Congress gave away a twenty year extension to copyright free of charge. The next opportunity to do something like that won't come up for fifteen more years, which is when Mickey Mouse again might enter the public domain.

Anyway... I was thinking... Could you do something like this with theatre? Is there any way you could get theatre to pay for theatre?

After thinking about it for awhile, I came up with the following pie-in-the-sky idea, which I submit to you, dear theatrosphere, to tear apart or enthusiastically champion as you see fit:

What if, after a Broadway show recoups (and only after) 1% of their net profits went to a foundation created (and maybe administered but with independence) by the Broadway League that gave living expense grants to artists? 

Now, there's some things in that above sentence that are dictated by practical realities: Most theater doesn't make any money.  You don't want to make it harder for commercial producers to not-lose-money, you also don't want to make it more difficult for them to make their weekly "nut", so you skim a bit off of net profits which, after a show recoups, can be quite significant.  Second, unless you passed a law creating something like this and funneled all of the money to NYSCA or whatever, if would have to be done by collective action of Broadway Producers and thus you'd need the Broadway League's involvement. And third, you'd want it to fund living expenses not projects because you don't want this money essentially getting perverted and it turning into a tax shelter for commercial show development.  

Comments

[Jodi SC]

It is certainly a really interesting idea. There are ways to work around the issues you presented - of course to make it mandatory it may have to be an inescapable tax on earnings of the commercial company's L.L.C. It could be applied nationwide through touring companies as well.

Ironically the most difficult aspect might be deciding which artists qualify for it. My knee-jerk reaction is it funds a housing subsidy a la Manhattan Plaza, but let's face it we all know that over the years that has become less and less effective in providing for artist of true need.

Certainly would be a great to explore further.

[99]

Wow. That's a great idea. And pretty easily actionable. Broadway Producers, you listening?

[Lucas Krech]

Taxing profitable shows to help subsidize working artists is a wonderful idea. I have trouble believing such a measure would pass in this country, but I think it would be brilliant if it did.

[Trochee]

I am all for the Chris Dodd idea. that's what copyright should be for, dangit.

[Mike Daisey]

Reading THE GIFT now as well, actually.