Nominate a replacement to head the National Endowment for the Arts

The leadership of the Dramatists Guild of America and the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society strongly encourages President Obama to nominate swiftly a new Chair of the National Endowment of the Arts.

On January 17th, the U.S. Senate allocated $146 million dollars to the NEA for 2014. This sends a very positive message of commitment and support to the arts community, who had expected a significant reduction based on a proposal last fall in the House of Representatives to cut NEA funding by upwards of 49%.

The Chair of the NEA has been a vacant position since December 2012.

By appointing strong leadership to the NEA to not only oversee the best uses of this annual budget but to champion the arts, President Obama signals their value to our country and helps to ensure their future in American culture.

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"If sometimes our great artists have been the most critical of our society, it is because their sensitivity and their concern for justice, which must motivate any true artist, makes him aware that our Nation falls short of its highest potential. I see little of more importance to the future of our country and our civilization than full recognition of the place of the artist. I look forward to a great future for America, a future in which our country will match its military strength with our moral restraint, its wealth with our wisdom, its power with our purpose. I look forward to an America which will not be afraid of grace and beauty."

President John F. Kennedy, At Amherst College, October 26, 1963

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