Island Moving Company's Alfandre says, "I think there's going to be a lot more conversation on how everybody can work together" to build audiences.
Festival Ballet's LaDew says, "I like to think the community will get behind the arts organizations and really support the live arts and give tickets as gifts."
AS220's Crenca proposes forming a "united arts fund," which could streamline art giving by creating a single central repository for donations, which would then be redistributed to arts organizations in the form of grants. But McCormack says local business leaders showed little interest in this when the manager of a Florida arts fund was invited to town to speak to about this idea a couple years ago. She adds, "Nationally, most of those funds are in trouble."
Crenca also urges arts organizations to adopt a "more earned-income model," perhaps including selling signature products.
Everett Dance Theatre's Kandarian says, "We're hoping that this new [Obama] administration will take a look at the economy and try to do something about it as soon as they can."
"It's going to be a prolonged recession," the Arts & Business Council's Bramante says. But "statistics show people like to keep dollars in local communities at times like this."
Trinity's Columbus says, "I think people are looking for things that take them outside themselves. Everybody's scared and they say that, they talk about it, and they just want to be out with other people."
He was working in theater in Chicago during the 1989 crunch, but saw ticket sales hold steady then. "I'm a fairly seasoned person in this industry, and at this point I just don't know. Anecdotally, during the Great Depression theater blossomed. So that's what I know from history. And now I'm living history, and I don't know what to do."
Read Greg Cook's blog at gregcookland.com/journal.
