A Banner Day for NEA Supporters
The big banner hanging outside the Museum of Contemporary Art downtown is a leftover from Thursday’s Arts Day USA, a nationwide effort to support the beleaguered National Endowment for the Arts. Museums and theaters throughout the Southland encouraged people to act and voice their support for the agency, which is threatened with extinction or severe congressional limitations.
People clustered in the halls of MOCA and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, writing letters to their representatives and senators on the pre-stamped postcards that were provided.
To Gordon Davidson, artistic director of the Center Theatre Group/Mark Taper Forum, a key to rescuing the NEA is to educate the public. On Arts Day, audience members at all three of the group’s theaters were asked to call (900) 226-ARTS, a number that automatically sends out Mailgrams to representatives and senators in the callers’ names. Curtain speeches by actors in support of the NEA were given before and after shows.
Similar pleas were issued in theaters and museums in Orange County and San Diego.
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