There more to it than that, though. The NEA serves as a certification of sorts. Numerous leaders talked about the validation the NEA grant provides to their work, which helps morale inside their organization and their reputation outside it.

“The National Endowment for the Arts is like the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval,” said Steve Martin, managing director of Childsplay in Arizona, which had a $25,000 grant terminated. “It makes it a little bit easier for us to be able to get additional funding. It’s a badge that other people respect. So it isn’t just the NEA that’s providing funding for our project. We actually leverage those funds to obtain other funds.”

This will be a bigger problem if the NEA is cut entirely, which the Trump administration has proposed in his administration’s 2026 budget. Of course, in the immediate term, it is the current money shortfall that matters. NEA grants require money to be expended, and then allowable expenses are reimbursed. In other words, you cannot wait until the money is in your bank. These funds were either planned for or spent—loans may even have been obtained on the basis of grants—which means that many companies are now scrambling. 

Some organizations had gotten wise prior to May 2 that trouble was brewing. Early in Trump’s administration, the NEA announced it was canceling the “Challenge America” grant program for fiscal year 2026. Then there new requirements for 2026 grants were announced which put many current recipients on edge. Additionally, grant terminations for the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Institute for Museum and Library Services had occurred. More specifically, several organizations reported problems finding their grant in the internal system or being able to get into the payment portal. When they reached out to NEA representatives, a few were told their already confirmed grant was “under review.” Some even started fundraising in early spring based on what they saw as frozen funds. Still, for most, May 2 was a shock.

Theatre organizations big and small have had their grants terminated. Theatre Communications Group and American Theatre generously shared the list they have compiled of terminated grants, and the names on it range from programs I’ve never heard of to those I’ve known my whole life.

The news tends to focus on specific theatres or local agencies, but some projects impacted have national reach. For example, the National Alliance for Musical Theatre (NAMT) had a $100,000 grant withdrawn that was expected to cover a significant portion of the costs for its annual conference and festival of new musicals, long thought to have a huge beneficial impact on the development of musicals.

“Losing funding for the conference and festival [has a] ripple effect on the entire development future of a lot of writers and pieces,” Betsy King Militello, NAMT executive director, stated. “It has a fieldwide impact, but that’s also sometimes a harder story to tell, because the theatre in your community is where you’re home; rightly people like to contribute to the thing in their backyard first.”

The Drama League is another organization with national reach and a NEA grant—but luckily they got their grant money already. Some organizations had spent and received money before the terminations notices were sent. For examples known to New Yorkers, WP Theater (formerly known as the Women’s Project Theater) had already received the majority of its $50,000 grant; New York Theatre Workshop received all of its promised $50,000.

Most organizations were not so lucky, either because they had not yet started amassing the bulk of expenses for a project, or because the system was frozen by the time they attempted to process their reimbursement.

Theatres are keeping contingency plans in mind if they do not receive federal money or a fundraising windfall. Maryland’s Chesapeake Shakespeare Company (CSC) had a $50,000 grant for its mobile outdoor performance unit cancelled. Ian Gallanar, CSC founder and artistic director, explained that each mounting of the mobile It’s the Comedy of Errors, Hon!, which reaches underserved communities throughout Maryland, costs about $20,000. He currently has 24 such performances scheduled; if he has to cut back on stops, he will, but that is a last resort.

Some leaders talked to me about shifting money and hoping for a better tomorrow. Others spoke about reducing costume and set budgets. One, who did not want to go public, told me she was cutting her salary by $10,000 so her company did not feel the hit.

“The type of art work we’re all able to do is going to be affected across the board, and it’s just a matter of how much, depending on the institution,” Lindsay Smiling, co-artistic director of Philadelphia’s Wilma Theater, which had a $25,000 grant terminated, said.

The Termination Terms

Even those folks who expected they may not receive their funding were surprised at the email itself. The emails stated the NEA was “updating its grantmaking policy priorities” to focus on the President’s priorities, i.e., “Projects that elevate the Nation’s HBCUs and Hispanic Serving Institutions, celebrate the 250th anniversary of American independence, foster AI competency, empower houses of worship to serve communities, assist with disaster recovery, foster skilled trade jobs, make America healthy again, support the military and veterans, support Tribal communities, make the District of Columbia safe and beautiful, and support the economic development of Asian American communities.”

Though no official explanation of this mass cancellation has been given, word on the street is that the NEA division heads were not aware this email was going out, and learned about it after organizationsd did. (Many of these same heads resigned after being offered a buyout.)

“The cuts seem targeted to creative work in general and not specific creative work, but it is a complete shift in priorities for what the National Endowment for the Arts was funding and what it was created to fund,” noted Erica Ezold, executive director of Philadelphia’s Quintessence Theatre Group, which had a $25,000 grant terminated for development of a new multi-disciplinary work, Fire!!, scheduled to premiere next season.

No one I spoke to is quite sure how these exact, and very specific, new funding priorities were chosen. Some organizations I know that were spared the chopping block do seem to fit these criteria—but so do organizations that had their grant terminated or withdrawn.

Organizations were given seven days to submit an appeal. Most of the organizations I spoke with chose to appeal, which was in line with what arts advocates were recommending. Even if appeals are not successful, they can show the impact of these cancellations and may help if lawsuits are brought. Of course, the hope is success. Some of the appeals I read look like they would have a better chance than others. I read one based solely on dancing being a way to a healthy America, which is probably true, but I’m not sure that is what the NEA general counsel will be looking for. But other companies and programs seem directly in line with the priorities contained in the email, thus theoretically making for stronger appeals. Chicago Latino Theater Alliance, for instance, had a $20,000 grant terminated for its Chicago International Latino Theater Festival. New York’s Repertorio Español had a $30,000 grant for its Teatro Acceso education and outreach program terminated. East West Players, based in Los Angeles’s Little Toyko and producing works centering on the Asian American experience, had a $20,000 grant terminated.

There are more examples. Theater Mu in St. Paul—which had a $20,000 grant to support artist fees for the company’s production of Ankita Raturi’s Fifty Boxes of Earth terminated—presents work about the Asian American experience. Managing director Anh Thu T. Pham expressed some confusion about just what the administration meant by “support the economic development of Asian American communities,” but believes her company fits the bill. Minnesota has “a very young Asian American community, and about 54 percent of our Asian American community identifies as immigrant and refugee,” Pham said. “So for us, when we talk about authentic stories with an Asian American lens, for our community and about our community, the value of that to our community is felt in every single production. Not for the audiences alone, but we have heard and seen it from our artists. For people who are not Asian American to come to our show, there are people who are learning about parts of American history that they have never learned before.”

In a time of increasing xenophobia, Pham noted how important arts focusing on Asian Americans are and, additionally, how crucial NEA funding has been for the company in prior years. She hopes to save this year’s grant, whether or not the hole can be made up by emergency philanthropic funding or not. Theater Mu’s appeal stressed the number of skilled trade workers employed for the production, the number of Asian American artists involved, and the percentage of audience members who are Asian American.

The termination emails did say that organizations could recoup for expenses incurred already or before the termination date. I’ve heard from a couple of organizations that submitted expenses soon after the emails that they received their funds. (These theatres had grants that began in fiscal year 2024, but it was unclear if that factored into the quick reimbursement or whether it was simply the speed with which they submitted.) So some theatres that had spent the money but had not yet received reimbursement were hopeful.

Several others I spoke to were trying to accelerate expenses and spend as much as possible before May 31. (This only works if the grant period has started already; a small number of grants do not start their grant period until later in the year, like the $40,000 Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park lost for a new Theresa Rebeck play, but for a grant period that would not begin until Aug. 1.) Arts advocates are recommending that organizations submit these expenses as soon as possible, but no later than the end of May, even if the email provided a later date, because they fear a cessation of funds. The theatres still facing payment portal issues are trying to resolve them ASAP, but have yet to receive guidance on how. 

It was hard for those who received termination notices not to think of them as an assault on the arts and what they represent. This is especially so given the rhetoric surrounding President Trump’s Kennedy Center takeover. The funding cuts also came after several arts groups represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (including TCG) took the administration to court over the administration’s demand that organizations applying for fiscal year 2026 NEA grants (assuming there is a NEA in 2026) certify they will not promote “gender ideology.” It’s important to note this kind of budgetary slashing is happening across the government. The National Science Foundation has had three waves of grant cancellations; the last one was on May 2.

Impact on Children

As I’ve written in the past, when you reduce theatre funding, you impact children and child development. Empirical research has shown that being exposed to, and participating in, the performing arts helps children and their ability to connect and communicate. In current times, most states and cities have cut arts funding to schools, and in many cases theatre companies have been picking up the slack.

Children’s theatres and programs also have a unique fundraising problem that adult theatres do not: They don’t have the same subscribers who stick with them for 20 years or more. Their audience is constantly changing, making consistent funding harder. In other words, children’s theatre needs federal support. Yet these NEA terminations hit several programs targeted at children, in red and blue states alike.

Birmingham Children’s Theatre in Alabama first received $25,000 for the world premiere of the play The Cat Man of Aleppo during the fiscal year 2023, but it was extended through this year due to production scheduling changes. It has now been terminated. Omaha Theater Company (a.k.a. the Rose Theater) had two grants terminated, one that began in 2024 for $20,000 and one that began this year for $15,000; both had an element of classroom outreach.

Kids in Concert in Suquamish, Washington, also lost its grant for $10,000 for a summer musical theatre camp, where kids write and act in their own original musical, then perform it for hundreds.

“We are on tribal land,” explained Kids in Concert executive director Christine Edwards. “We have a broad demographic—some 40 percent or so are tribal kids—and we’re very committed to accessibility. A lot of the dynamic of what we do with this theatre program is making it possible in a community that would not otherwise have any access to this type of programming.”

Kids in Concert should have a good appeal based on the NEA’s stated presidential priority to “support Tribal communities,” but in the meantime, it is out $10,000 for a program that costs only slightly over $20,000. Edwards is still committed to doing it—she received a sponsor for it last year and is looking to go that same route now—but it is not a small hole to fill.

New Paradigm Theatre in Connecticut had its $10,000 grant for a production of Hairspray, starring children who work alongside professional theatre artists, terminated. Kristin Huffman, New Paradigm’s producing artistic director, stressed how the program was not simply about training actors, but about creating leaders. “You’re taking away part of something that will teach leadership and poise and cooperation, all the things the arts to give to young people,” she said. “This is $10,000 of what would have been transportation money, what would have been scholarship money. We’re still going to provide that, but it’s going to hit our bottom line.”

Jeff Frank, executive artistic director at First Stage in Wisconsin, is already making changes based on the termination of his company’s $20,000 grant for the creation of Society of Historic Sonic Happenings, an immersive theatre and audio experience intended to use sounds from Milwaukee. The company was still trying to fundraise the other half of the money for the project when it got the termination email. While Frank still hopes to move forward, and will continue to fundraise for the piece, it is currently at a “standstill.” A planned step in the project’s development, the gathering of the sounds to be used, was scheduled for June, but has now been put on hold. That is how important that $20,000 was to the company.

Theatres not specifically focused on kids also had programs and shows intended to benefit children terminated. New York’s IRT Theater had a $15,000 grant terminated for Westside Experiment, a theatre program for deaf, hard-of-hearing, and hearing students combined. Think about that: This is a program that reaches out to children with hearing challenges who may not otherwise be able to easily experience theatre, and gives them the joy of creating their own theatrical piece. There is no charge for participation. This program is so clearly beneficial to an underserved community, yet the grant was terminated. Fortunately for IRT, and the children the program impacts, producing artistic director Kori Rushton submitted for reimbursement the night the email arrived, and the company has been able to obtain the full $15,000 from the NEA. But the termination itself is worrisome because, like so many other beneficial programs, the program does not neatly fit within the new NEA stated priorities. IRT was simply lucky they spent the money already.

Another of the terminated grants was to support Marin Shakespeare Company in producing a Lauren Gunderson adaptation of Rebecca Solnit’s children’s book Cinderella Liberator. The company’s managing director, Lesley Currier, said the loss of a $20,000 grant wouldn’t stop them, but did worry about the “negative impact across the board” these cuts would have, especially on arts education.

“This generation spent a big chunk of their childhood learning on screens,” she said. “They need the performing arts and the social and emotional intelligence that comes from that. So we’re sorry this happened to us, and we may have to close down some programs if it continues, but we’re more concerned about the arts in general.”

Next Steps

Even before these terminations, arts companies were reeling from a series of setbacks, with many staff members still working on partial pay. I’ve long said that as an industry we’ve done a poor job of communicating that theatre is a public good, so it’s something that governments and philanthropic organizations have had an easy time cutting.

But the arts are a public good. They inform conversations, they teach empathy, they both tell us where we are in the world and yet somehow cause us to step away from where we are and travel somewhere else in our minds. They also contribute economically to their communities.

An easy thing you can do to show you care about the arts is contact your congressional representative, your senator, and the president. Complain to them about the terminations and about Trump’s plan to eliminate the NEA entirely. If you are pressed for time, click here for a form letter that will go to your representatives urging them to support NEA and NEH funding for next year. You can even add in a line about the grant cancellations.

You can also donate to the companies or programs in this story by clicking on the theatre names. Donate to other organizations you are attached to. Thankfully, some communities have been responding in exactly this way to the immediate cries of theatre companies.

The Contemporary Theater of Ohio had never received a NEA grant previously in its 40-year history, but it received a $10,000 grant for its production of Fat Ham, which was just shy of one sixth of the entire production budget. Before the show started performances on March 6, executive director Christy Farnbauch realized they could not submit via the payment portal and went public with that fact. Almost immediately, a local event and dining space in Columbus, The Kitchen, donated $10,000; then the theatre received another anonymous $10,000 donation to “support free speech,” and people started taking money out of their wallet after every performance to chip in. In short, they received well over $20,000 to replace the missing $10,000.

Brian Weaver, co-founder of the Portland Playhouse in Oregon, acted immediately upon receiving the May 2 email, and reported that the company had raised over $60,000 to make up for the $25,000 terminated grant for August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone. Now he is trying to spread the love.

“There’s a new crisis coming next week and everybody’s going to forget about the arts funding,” he said. “So we launched a GoFundMe account to be distributed evenly among all of the Oregon companies that lost funding. It’s about uniting as a state, including the Republican parts of the state, and saying we value this and it’s important and we’re voting with our $10.” (You can donate here.)

Organizations in other cities and states have similarly banded together. Other companies are waiting until their year-end appeals to broach the topic. Some are lifting it up during already-scheduled galas. And various philanthropic organizations have stepped in: The Tides Foundation has been great, as has the Mellon Foundation.

We as a theatre community also have to think creatively. Just because some theatres have made up their lost NEA grant doesn’t mean the entire shortfall can be replaced or that smaller companies can survive entirely without an NEA. HERE co-director Lauren Miller, whose company originally received one of the higher NEA grants at $75,000 to put toward a $1.25 million project, perhaps put it best when she said, “The money from the NEA is not enough, and also it is desperately needed.”

Nonprofit theatres, as has been widely publicized, are already struggling. That of course includes theatres that didn’t even get NEA grants. The Billie Holiday Theatre has a long history of NEA funding for its summer intensive program focused around the contributions of Black Americans to the American theatre field, but for some reason the grant never came through in the first place for 2025, putting that program at risk.

Clearly, the fundraising needs of the American theatre go beyond just making up for the NEA grants terminated. We’re not going to save the world by making up for one $10,000 grant, but that will help.

If you can’t donate yourself, encourage others to do so. Post about a theatre company on social media. Encourage businesses to back theatre. Local businesses have recently been turning away from the arts, but if they know how important the arts are to their community, they might change course. It’s good business. I plan to go to Columbus in the fall, and I’m totally going to see if The Kitchen has a public event during that time.

There is talk about changing the funding and production infrastructure, sure, and those talks should continue, but right now we can raise money to assist struggling companies. There is, of course, the concern that raising money privately proves that the NEA isn’t necessary. But that fear can’t be as great as the need to help these companies.

Some theatre owners and producers have long been reluctant to allow curtain call speeches for charities other than BC/EFA. I understand that; no one wants companies to be overwhelmed with requests or to feel like you are constantly guilting your audience. But this is our cause. And I’m pretty sure that if someone told a star such as Nicole Scherzinger she could raise enough money to help a few hundred kids experience the magic of making theatre by spending a week auctioning off post-show photos, she’d do it. Even “Email Your Congresspeople” printouts with QR codes inserted into Playbills could help.

Every little thing is a step in the right direction. Some terminated Institute for Museum and Library Services were already reinstated. That is because of some type of pressure.

Theatre will always happen, with or without federal money. But we’ve already seen tremendous downsizing in recent years, as a substantial number of theatres have shuttered since the pandemic. In just the last week, two theatres in major cities have announced “do or die” campaigns, and everywhere companies are doing fewer shows—and that hurts the creative landscape. Each blow stings. Just because one show or program can continue without a specific NEA grant doesn’t mean that funding isn’t necessary. We all need to work together to make sure theatre remains plentiful and accessible. Funding is needed.

If you want to discuss what you can do for the arts, you can reach the author at cara@broadwayworld.com.