Cleveland, Ohio Photograph Courtesy of the Convention and Visitors Bureau Cleveland

Cleveland, Ohio Photograph courtesy of the Convention and Visitors Bureau Cleveland. s Drew Carey says, Cleveland rocks. But The city’s other key treasure, the heavily the home of the Rock and Roll Hall of endowed Cleveland Museum of Art, has faced a A Fame and Museum also lays claim similar plight. In July 2003 it was forced to lay to the world-renowned Cleveland off employees, freeze salaries and cut pay by 5 Orchestra, a distinct source of civic pride in this percent for senior management in order to trim struggling rust-belt city. its $33.3 million budget by $3.3 million. One reason for the orchestra’s strong ties to And these prestige institutions are the lucky “It’s not just the community is its roster of educational pro- ones. In the past five years, companies that have grams, which began with its founding in 1918 gone out of business include the Cleveland arts for arts’ and continues today. More than 70,000 young Ballet, once hailed as among the nation’s top sake anymore.” people and adults annually attend concerts at classical dance companies; the Ohio Chamber Kathleen Cerveny Severance Hall, the orchestra’s home, and more Orchestra, which served as the ballet’s pit orches- senior program officer than 100,000 Clevelanders flock each year to tra; and the Cleveland Signstage Theatre, a the- The Cleveland free Fourth of July concerts and other events. ater company for the deaf. For a city with such Despite its importance, the Cleveland premier cultural facilities, the vexing problem is Foundation. Orchestra has experienced financial hard times how to make sure other institutions don’t also in the past five years. At the end of 2002 it was close their doors. $1.3 million in the hole. So even though its envi- At the Cleveland Play House, the nation’s able endowment should ensure that it will be oldest continuously operating nonprofit theater around for some time to come, the orchestra still company, executive director Dean Gladden set out to cut costs. It suspended its national pointed—literally—to one of the reasons for the radio broadcasts, delayed repairs to Severance Cleveland arts scene’s woes. “B.P. America, gone. Hall and instituted a salary freeze for some TRW, sold last year,” he says, reading names from employees and voluntary pay cuts for senior a plaque installed in 1983 that honors corporate administrators. Still, the next year it posted an donors. “White Consolidated Industries, gone. even bigger deficit: $1.9 million on a $36.1 mil- LTV Steel Company, bankrupt. Gone.” lion budget. In the 1990s, no fewer than 11 corporations 52 REPORTING THE ARTS II moved their headquarters out of Cleveland. Cleveland is one of the few cities its size with lit- OfficeMax recently joined the exodus, leaving tle public funding for culture. The city spends Cleveland alone among the top 20 largest U.S. less than $100,000 on the arts—despite a study cities to show a net loss of large corporate head- released in 2000 that showed the arts and cul- quarters. “The single biggest area of concern is tural industry generates more than $1 billion in that Cleveland’s corporate population has been economic activity and employs 3,700 full-time declining and continues to decline,” says Gary workers in the region. In fact, in order to fund Hanson, the orchestra’s executive director. the Cleveland Browns Stadium, the city enacted “Consequently, corporate support for the arts has a parking tax that didn’t exempt nonprofit been declining.” groups; a percentage of their parking fees there- And when the corporations moved or shut fore goes to subsidize one of the richest pro down, plenty of management-level and other sports teams in the country. And the city’s major jobs went with them. Census figures show that the region lost 1.3 percent of its population during the 1990s, while the U.S. population as a whole grew by more than 13 percent. What’s more, young people moved out of the area at a rate more than twice the national average, including nearly 20 percent of those 25 to 34 years of age. “We try new things every year, and our subscription base is still diminishing,” says Gladden, who has seen Play House subscribers dwindle from 14,000 in 1983 to 7,000 this sea- son. “Instead of saying they don’t have time, they’re saying, ‘We’re worried about our jobs.’ Or they don’t have a job, and they’re trying to save money.” Another demographic shift that has hurt institutions like the Play House is movement from inner-ring suburbs like Cleveland Heights and Shaker Heights to communities farther outside the city such as Solon, Hudson and Bainbridge. For those residents, a trip to and from Cleveland for a night’s entertainment is now more complicated and time-consuming. Meanwhile, the city’s cultural community has faced problems common to arts groups nationwide. Post-September 11, ticket sales dropped, and the falling stock market caused a decrease in foundation support and private giv- ing. For example, the Cleveland Foundation’s arts grants totaled $8.6 million in both 1999 and 2002 but dipped to $7.1 million in 2003. At the same time, the Cleveland-based George Gund Foundation reduced its grants overall by $1 million, falling to $19 million in 2002 and $18 million the following year. “I think it can be stabilized, but I think we’ll lose more organizations,” says Marcie Goodman, executive director of the Cleveland Film Society, which was pulled back from the brink of bankruptcy in 2003. “I don’t see population increasing. I think it’s more a matter of just stabilizing and building a more devoted audience, and reaching out to new audiences.” The Plain Dealer Making matters worse is the fact that NATIONAL ARTS JOURNALISM PROGRAM 53 investment in the popular arts—the Rock and tive and artistically well-regarded are Red, an Roll Hall of Fame, designed by I.M. Pei and orchestra formed in 2001 by former members opened in 1995—draws mainly tourists and has of the Ohio Chamber Orchestra, and not proven itself to be an incubator for arts-relat- GroundWorks, a dance company founded in ed businesses. 1998 by former Cleveland Ballet dancer David The last five years have been bleak, but those Shimotakahara. Other new ventures are helping who toil in the nonprofit arts world are nothing to revitalize the scene as well. A group called if not optimistic. Some might even argue that Sparx in the City, for example, has organized hard times have given rise to positive develop- such events as a tour of 50 art galleries, designed ments, such as the formation of the Community both to highlight the arts and stimulate mer- Partnership for the Arts and Culture (C-PAC), chant activity in downtown Cleveland. which has become an arts-advocacy coalition Perhaps the biggest change to come out of and a clearinghouse for information. the troubled times is a new mindset about the In the meantime, help has gone out to some role of culture in general. “It’s not just arts for troubled groups in the form of the Cleveland arts’ sake anymore,” says Kathleen Cerveny, sen- “I don’t see Foundation’s Advancement Program for Mid- ior program officer of the Cleveland Foundation. population Sized Arts Organizations. Announced in May “The arts have to make the case that they con- 2004, the three-year, $5 million initiative is tribute to economic and community develop- increasing. I designed to assist groups across a range of disci- ment, not just to the quality of life and perpetu- plines—Apollo’s Fire: The Cleveland Baroque ating old elitist values.” think it’s more Orchestra, Cleveland Film Society, Cleveland Cerveny, for one, sees hope even in the March a matter of just Public Art, Great Lakes Theater Festival, 2004 defeat of Issue 31, a property-tax initiative Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland and that would have raised nearly $21 million to help stabilizing and Young Audiences of Greater Cleveland—in the local economy and cultural activity. “Even strengthening their balance sheets and develop- though it failed, the arts community was enor- building a more ing a core of skilled leaders. mously energized,” she says. “There was recogni- devoted Furthermore, new troupes have arisen from tion overnight that the arts were a sector to be the demise of old ones. Among the most innova- contended with.” audience, and By Valerie Takahama reaching out to new audiences.” Marcie Goodman executive director Cleveland Film Society 54 REPORTING THE ARTS II While Editor & Publisher magazine gave Cleveland’s Plain Dealer and Sunday Arts. On the weekends The Plain Dealer was one of accolades for its improvements, the paper’s newshole for arts-and-cul- four metropolitan newspapers in our study to increase both the arti- ture articles has nonetheless been devastated during the past five cles and listings newshole in its arts sections. Nonetheless, the years. The monthly story count plummeted from more than 650 arti- increase was from unusually low to slightly below average. cles to fewer than 450, causing the paper to go from being a leader in Over the last five years, The Plain Dealer has transformed its the arts coverage in October 1998 to merely average in 2003. movie coverage by introducing voluminous listings, which now take These huge cuts were the result of a revamping of The Plain up more space than journalism. Music has also shifted toward list- Dealer’s daily arts journalism.

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