Grantsmanship a Game With Unclear Set of Rules

The California Arts Council annually gives Sushi, San Diego’s chief performance art presenter, a top rating in its Organizational Grants Program.

But Lynn Schuette, Sushi’s director, finds that the high marks only fuel the frustration she feels. This year, Schuette saw her grant decrease, even though production costs rose.

“It’s been a continual frustration to get perfect scores and see your (state funding) drop going into your ninth season,” Schuette said. “When I started on grants councils with the California Arts Council (four years ago), if you got a 4 (on a scale of 1-4) you automatically got what you requested.”

Those days are past. Sushi requested $20,000 for next year, but was awarded only $13,600, a $27 drop from this year.

The problem, an Arts Council spokeswoman said, is that more nonprofit groups are competing for the same size pot, while more groups are earning higher ratings.

The ranking system gives the council a means of comparing arts organizations artistically and administratively. But there’s more to it than that: The fine art of grantsmanship also comes into play. Between the grantsmanship and the rankings, there are times when the awards seem arbitrary.

Here are two organizations for which the rankings dictated the size of the award: San Diego’s Three’s Company and Dancers received an almost perfect grade of 4-. It will receive an $8,935 award, about $300 less than Tandy Beal & Company, a much larger modern dance troupe from Santa Cruz. The difference is due mainly to the rankings; Tandy Beal received a grade of 3+.

Financial statements provided the arts council indicate a substantial difference in the size of the two troupes. Three’s Company’s annual operating cost for 1986-87 was $84,600, while operations for the same period cost Tandy Beal $244,500. Last year, Tandy Beal toured extensively, making trips to the East Coast, the South, Hawaii, Japan and throughout California. Three’s Company made a single tour to San Francisco.

Though Three’s Company is something of an artistic cooperative and Tandy Beal is guided by a single visionary, both groups were praised by the evaluators for the artistic quality of their choreography.

Three’s Company “tastefully produces a very enjoyable evening of modern dance,” the Arts Council report states. “Dancers are lovely and strong. Choreography is very interesting. Technical values are quite good.”

The Tandy Beal company was specifically praised for its director, “a solid choreographer and adventurous artists.” Some panelists felt that its improvisational work needs more originality and the choreography needs development, and supported the troupe’s request for money for new choreography.

The Arts Council report noted with favor the Three’s Company’s “Lo-Tec” summer concert series. It also patted the business manager on the back as “an able administrator” and singled out the company’s efforts to nurture San Diego dancers, provide exchange programs with other California cities and assume “its leadership role within the San Diego dance community.”

As for grantsmanship, let’s compare the Bowery Theatre’s application, which put the theater’s entire bare-bones operation under review, with that of the much larger and still-expanding Gaslamp Quarter Theatre.

The tiny Bowery, which operates out of a hotel basement, requested $12,000 but was awarded $2,400, or 20% of its request. It received a ranking of 3 and was described as serving “an important purpose in San Diego.” The score was lower than it might have been because of what the evaluators called a “fairly mediocre” season and quality that “tended to be somewhat erratic in the past because of an absent artistic director.” Similarly, the theater was scored for its small board of directors, which “needs development.”

But the peer panel was impressed with a new artistic team and gave a vote of confidence to the Bowery’s new director, Ralph Elias, who has shown “a strong feeling of direction for the theater.”

By comparison, the Gaslamp Quarter Theatre, with a substantially larger budget and operation, applied for $50,000 and was granted $26,000 (52% of its request), in recognition of a 4- ranking. But the Gaslamp’s core season of plays in its two theaters was not evaluated.

Instead, the group’s application asked the Arts Council to consider a single, impressive program: the California Young Playwrights Project. Developed by Deborah Salzer, the California Young Playwrights Project operates now in three counties in collaboration with local school districts. The project, based on a similar program in New York, stimulates students to write plays through an annual contest in which the top plays are produced at the Gaslamp.

Asked why the Gaslamp did not request support for its primary program of plays produced for adults, a theater spokesman said, the Young Playwrights Project “is the best program in which to apply.”

The difference is that the Young Playwrights Project is an outreach program, designed to bring theater to new audiences, operating in not one but three counties, said Gaslamp spokesman Nonnie Vishner.

“The CAC likes to see statewide outreach,” he said. “By focusing on a project they are familiar with and support as statewide outreach, you’re more likely to get a favorable response.”

But there’s an anomaly here. In the Gaslamp’s case, the rank earned was “based solely on the Young Playwrights Project,” according to the peer panel, but the size of the award was predicated on the theater’s overall budget. Isn’t it unfair to put blinders on a peer panel to prevent them from evaluating the entire program by the way an application is written?

“A panelist would generally would raise the same issue--why are we looking at the entire budget when we’re evaluating a part of the program?” said Juan Carrillo, the California Arts Council’s deputy director for programs. Carrillo said he agrees that there appears to be an anomaly, but has no knowledge of the award. “But the (peer panel’s) comment is a message to the organization: don’t be fooled by the 4-. Don’t expect to walk into here and be funded (at the same level) for your entire operation.”