Arts Council of Hillsborough County Grants Program

Help us save the Arts Council of Hillsborough County Grants program!

The Arts Council of Hillsborough County’s grant program provides essential annual support to local cultural organizations that add $292 million to the local economy and employ more than 8,000 people.

The Hillsborough County Administration has proposed to eliminate funding for this critical grant program for the coming year.

You can help us save this valuable grant program by participating in this petition. It will be presented to the Hillsborough County Board of County Commissioners in July to urge their continued support for the Arts Council Grants Program.

If you’d like to help, simply click here http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/saveartscouncil2010funding/and add your signature to the petition. In the "comments" box, please type your zip code i.e. Hillsborough 33601.

Also, the site randomly asks for donations to "IPetitions." This is not necessary since it counts your signature if you simply "X" out of the site from the donation window. We need as many signatures as possible from Hillsborough County by JULY 14, 2010.

To learn more about the importance of supporting this petition, please read on…A strong cultural community is a vital economic engine in Hillsborough County.More than 4.2 million residents and visitors attend arts and cultural events year-round in Hillsborough County.

Thousands upon thousands of Hillsborough County school children benefit from arts education programs provided at little or no charge by local arts and cultural organizations.The arts are an important policy asset and prosperity generator for local government. In addition to their inherent value to society, our local cultural organizations are:

• ECONOMIC DRIVERS: The arts create jobs and produce tax revenue. The arts sector stimulates business activity, attracts tourism revenue, retains a high quality work force and stabilizes property values. The arts have been shown to be a successful and sustainable strategy for revitalizing rural areas, inner cities and populations struggling with poverty.
  
• EDUCATIONAL ASSETS: The arts foster young imaginations and facilitate children’s success in school. They provide the critical thinking, communications and innovation skills essential to a productive 21st‐century work force.
  
• CIVIC CATALYSTS: The arts create a welcoming sense of place and a desirable quality of life. The arts also support a strong democracy, engaging citizens in civic discourse, dramatizing important issues and encouraging collective problem solving.
  
• CULTURAL LEGACIES: The arts preserve unique culture and heritage, passing precious cultural character and traditions along to future generations.
  

Hard times require public officials to make the most of every asset and to adopt policies that maximize recovery potential. The arts are a proven part of that mix. The arts are a recovery asset that supports jobs, stimulates commerce, stabilizes property values and provides many other economic benefits.

In addition to their many economic advantages, the arts offer timely assistance with educational and civic challenges that tend to escalate during tough times. The arts are also central to community resiliency. Whether facing economic distress, natural disasters or other adversity, the arts are a powerful force for recovery and healing, a benefit that few other industries offer.

We hope you will join us by supporting the arts in Hillsborough County by participating in this petition.

Florida State Thespian Festival

It’s that time of year again – the Florida State Thespian Festival. For the next 4 days the Straz Center and the Convention Center will be hosting 7200 young artists as they perform, compete, learn and participate in one of the largest theater festivals in the world.

This phenomenon has garnered so much attention that there has even been a movie made about it.

Being here and being a part of the Thespian Festival is something I have written about before. As a former Florida State Thespian, (go Troupe #334 – represent!) I have so many fond memories of this week. I try not to think about how many years have gone by since I hopped off the bus and onto the grounds of the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center (as it was called back then) and performed in Festival Hall (now the Morsani Hall) and the Playhouse (now the Ferguson). I remember every show I saw, every class I took, every boy I flirted with just because they were from another school.

I remember being blown away by a production of Noises Off by Bolles High School. I remember falling in love with a production of Eleemosynary (a show I would later perform and direct, twice). I remember taking my first real improvisation workshop (I would later go on to perform for The Second City). And I remember stealing a kiss by the river with a boy whose name has drifted away.

It was always the best week of high school.

When you’re growing up, it’s so important to “fit in” and be accepted by your peers. I think I can speak to many of us in the arts that growing up, we never felt like we “fit in” anywhere. We were easy to spot in high school: We walked in small packs through the hallways hoping for safety in numbers. We ate in the corner of the cafeteria, if we ate in the cafeteria at all. Our hair changed colors, our clothes had copious numbers of safety pins, and our conversations were peppered with Monty Python references and snippets of songs. We represented the Island of Misfit Toys.

But once a year, we got to run away to Tampa. For those of us from small towns, it was mind blowing to walk amongst the skyscrapers and witness a “real” downtown. Everywhere we looked we saw ourselves. We met people who were just like us and we were all encouraged to be different. We were encouraged to celebrate our eccentricities, to embrace our strangeness, to channel our creativity. Florida State Thespians was our oasis. We could sing as loud as we wanted, perform stage combat in the street, wear matching t-shirts with our troupe number on them, sweat it out waiting to find out, would we super superior?

I cannot express how critical arts education and arts experiences were to my personal development and how important it will be to the development of this next generation of artists. The experiences they will have, the friendships they will make, the different ideas, mediums, and genres they will learn about will make them more rounded, more thoughtful people. It will make a difference. It can’t be taught in a classroom or out of a book. It is a visceral, mind-blowing, life-changing event. If you think I’m over stating it, come on down here and witness it for yourself.

To any Thespians who might be reading this, welcome. Enjoy yourselves, learn as much as you can and be 100% authentic in your skin. We are so happy to have you here and we hope that maybe someday you’ll come back and make this performing arts center your home. Take one of your free nights and see Godspell in the Jaeb or Jobsite Theater's Pericles in the Shimberg. There are Florida Thespian Alums in both casts and they'd be more than happy to talk to you after the show. And don’t do anything stupid while you’re here. Those of us who have been to Festival know all the tricks and all the hiding places and we’re watching. ;)

-Kari G.

Into the blue: The future of live arts

Ben Cameron, program director for the arts at the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, earlier today evangelized about the challenges facing arts organizations, including the collapse of social planning beyond 48 hours and the time/energy drain.

Cameron provided the keynote speech at the 16th annual Performing Arts Managers Conference in Phoenix.

He woke up the early-morning audience with an impassioned delivery that noted today's audiences are looking for personalized and customized experiences, and that we're in an industry that demands attendance on a certain day and a certain time. Unfortunately, you can't timeshift live theater. Yet, anyway.

He also noted that young people increasingly want to be part of the creative process. Anybody with a computer can compose a song or make a poster or edit a movie.

Although official arts education is down in many schools, he sees a bright side:

"We're in a golden age of arts education," he said. "The difference is that it's no longer the 'we will teach, and you will learn' model."

He said arts education takes place every day, peer to peer and in social networks, and that nimble arts organizations will try and figure out how to enlist that creativity as "activators, engagers and harvesters of culture."

Cameron ended by reminding us of the importance of the arts, that the arts connect us, provide a means of understanding ... provide "our family photos" of shared history and culture.

As always with conferences, attendees take away kernels of knowledge or inspiration and then try and plant them at home in their organizations.

It's too early to know what we'll do with Ben's thoughts, but when we do, you folks here at Culture Shock will be the first to know. -- MichaelK