N.Y. Producer Rejects NEA’s $50,000 Grant

New York theater producer Joseph Papp turned down a $50,000 National Endowment for the Arts grant Thursday and said he would reject another $400,000 he expected to receive as a protest over anti-obscenity provisions imposed on the arts agency by conservatives in Congress.

Papp’s decision was disclosed in a letter he sent from his New York Shakespeare Festival to NEA Chairman John E. Frohnmayer. His stance ended more than two weeks of uncertainty over whether he would become the first nationally acclaimed artist to turn down NEA money in the growing protest over disputed anti-pornography language in the endowment’s 1990 funding bill.

“I cannot in all good conscience accept any money from the National Endowment for the Arts” as long as the anti-obscenity provisions are in force, Papp wrote to Frohnmayer.

The strictures were enacted in a compromise between endowment supporters in Congress and Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N. C.), who had demanded even tougher restrictions. Under the strictures, the NEA requires grant recipients to sign statements acknowledging they will not produce any work that could be construed as obscene and without artistic merit.

Papp had already been offered a $50,000 grant for his organization’s Festival Latino. In his Thursday letter telling Frohnmayer he had decided to reject the money, Papp added that although the New York Shakespeare Festival had intended to apply for $550,000 in additional 1990 grants, it would not apply for or accept the money. Papp said the festival had anticipated being offered about $400,000 in that category.

In a telephone interview, Papp said that the Shakespeare Festival’s annual budget is $14 million.

He said that, in the end, it was impossible to accept the requirement that the Shakespeare Festival execute a legal statement guaranteeing their work would not be considered pornographic.