OK, it was national effort. But in 1991 the fate of the National Endowment for the Arts was in grave question.

I left my job as managing director at Pegasus Players to become an organizer with the League of Chicago Theatres staffing their newly formed Advocacy Committee. Our job was to make theater patrons aware of the attack on the NEA by the Far Right and urging people to contact their legislators in support of funding for the arts in America.

We created program stuffers for theaters across the city and had house managers deliver a speech before the performance. The lights would dim and the speech would start out “If you don;t want the lights turn out on America’s arts organizations….” and called attention to the stuffers and asked folks to sign them and leave them in the lobby.
These were collected and delivered to local legislators.

We also combined (for the first and only time to my knowledge) the subscriber and donor lists from the Goodman, Steppenwolf and Victory Gardens Theaters. We pulled together a list of 10,000 and sent out a sophisticated piece asking people to sign a petition and return the piece to use as well as asking for a non-tax deductible contribution. We got an 8% return and received enough donations to pay for the campaign!

People signed and returned this response card which we then delivered to our two Senators and President Bush.

We also organized a rally in Daley Plaza to save the NEA in September of 1991.

None of this work was documented or reported on. The lessons I learned as an arts organizer changed my life and propelled me on a civic arc that continues to this day.