There’s a universal known in the arts world — money doesn’t come easy.
While North Texas arts groups don’t rely on the U.S. government for the majority of their funding, organizations say they’re worried about the future of federal grant programs, especially with the current focus on slashing budgets, laying off workers, closing departments and imposing restrictions on who can get money for what.
President Donald Trump’s administration has said it’s trying to reduce the size and scope of the federal bureaucracy.
In February, the National Endowment for the Arts, which distributes about $39 million annually to arts groups across the state, announced the end of Challenge America, an initiative aimed at helping smaller organizations reach underserved audiences.
Arts organizations have been pointed toward the NEA’s main funding program for individual groups, Grants for Arts Projects, but there are new restrictions. NEA officials have said that the president’s executive orders barring federal funding to organizations that promote diversity, equity and inclusion and “gender ideology” apply to the agency.
“It’s a concern because we’ve won funding from them in the past,” says Cara Mia Theatre director David Lozano, whose company received Arts Projects money in 2022 and 2023 to help fund productions of shows with Latino and Black themes. “It’s an important resource for everybody.”
Confusion
Confusion ensued when it was announced Challenge America would be eliminated for fiscal 2026. Ballet North Texas and Flamenco Fever had won 2025 grants from the program but wondered whether they would still receive the money. The ballet troupe intended the funds to support sensory-friendly performances, the flamenco group for classes and student performances.
“We’ve been told the funding is not canceled,” says Nicolina Lawson, Ballet North Texas founder and artistic director, “but we’ve yet to receive clarification on when or how we’ll get the funds.”
“How can they break a confirmed contract?” asks Flamenco Fever executive director Julia Alcántara.
Katie Puder, founder and artistic director of Avant Chamber Ballet, plans to apply for an NEA grant this year to help pay for free community dance classes across the city, including at the South Dallas Cultural Center. But she wonders if Avant can be funded under the new rules.
“Our South Dallas classes are all based on equity,” Puder says, “so it’s strange to talk about them without really being able to discuss the why.”
While receiving or being rejected for an NEA grant might not make or break an arts group, it can be a stamp of approval that helps draw other funding, or at least some attention.
In 10 of the past 13 years, Kitchen Dog Theater has won grants from the NEA, making the Dallas troupe one of the most successful performing arts groups at securing federal funding in Texas, according to managing director Tim Johnson.
Another local company, Bishop Arts Theatre Center, was one of only four North Texas groups to be granted American Rescue Plan money from the NEA in 2022. The $150,000 award for the up-and-coming organization tied for the largest local grant with the more established Dallas Symphony Orchestra.
“A lot of people didn’t know the strength of our organization until we got that NEA grant,” the center’s founder and executive artistic director, Teresa Coleman Wash, said in an interview with The Dallas Morning News last year. “Our profile was elevated and the artistic community started looking at our organization differently.”
NEA money
Aside from special funding during the COVID-19 shutdown and the appropriations the NEA sends to state agencies like the Texas Commission on the Arts to pass through to local groups, NEA money is primarily awarded for specific productions, not day-to-day operations.
Over the years, Grants for Arts Projects and its predecessor program, Art Works, has funded shows by dozens of North Texas theater, dance and music groups, from Bruce Wood Dance to Verdigris Ensemble.
Bishop Arts Theatre Center’s most recent NEA awards helped fund productions in 2024 of Jet Fuel, a play about a Black Olympic gold medalist from South Africa barred from defending her title because of high testosterone levels in her body, and next month’s A Dallas Hedda, playwright in residence Franky D. Gonzalez new take on the Ibsen classic Hedda Gabler. Each received $15,000.
Though a federal district court judge temporarily blocked enforcement of executive orders surrounding DEI in February, an appeals court stayed the decision last month. The uncertainty is already having an effect on how arts groups are approaching their pursuit of federal grants.
“We have decided not to apply for NEA funding this year due to all of the restrictions,” says Wash of the Bishop Arts Theatre Center. “Our board is committed to our mission to engage and cultivate a vibrant arts community by welcoming emerging artists and developing equitable, multigenerational programming for the community, where learning and social impact are invited and celebrated.”
Dallas Theater Center, the area’s oldest and one of the better-funded theater companies, has been awarded almost $100,000 from the Grants for Arts Projects program since 2021, including for productions of Shane this year and I Am Delivered’t in 2024. Yet executive director Kevin Moriarty says the group is not relying on them. “At this time, our ability to operate is not affected by national politics.”
That’s due, at least in part, to the fact that Dallas arts organizations, including the Theater Center, receive more of their public funding from the city’s Office of Arts and Culture (a total of $6.4 million this year to 56 groups), The Arts Community Alliance or TACA ($1 million to 50 groups) and the Texas Commission on the Arts (more than $14 million statewide) than the federal government. They also rely on ticket sales, foundation and corporate grants and individual donations.
The Texas Commission on the Arts, which receives less than 10% of its budget from the NEA, the rest coming from state funds, has asked the Legislature for an increase in each of the next two years, according to Anina Moore, director of artist services and communications. That would mean more money for arts groups. Moore expects NEA’s contribution to remain level.
“We make the case for its economic impact, particularly on cultural tourism,” she says.
To that end, the NEA has reported that its funding from 2019 to 2023 of almost 700 Texas arts groups added 2.5% or almost $60 billion to the state economy.
Economic case
Further making the economic case, the NEA says that according to a 2022 survey, “Nearly 40 percent of Texas’ adults attended live music, theater or dance performances, while nearly 20 percent attended art exhibits.”
Expanding those efforts, the NEA announced a pilot program in 2023 aimed at increasing participation in the arts by members of historically underserved communities. Last year, Teatro Dallas, one of two resident companies at the city-operated Latino Cultural Center along with Cara Mia, won one of those ArtsHERE grants. It’s using the money and training for capacity building and succession planning, according to development director Sara Cardona.
“ArtsHERE supports organizations that have demonstrated a commitment to equity within their practices,” says the program’s description on the NEA website. “Grants are for specific projects that will strengthen the organization’s capacity to sustain meaningful community engagement and increase arts participation for underserved groups/communities. Grantees have access to peer-learning and technical assistance opportunities designed to share knowledge and build networks.”
Cardona says Teatro Dallas also plans to apply to an NEA program that promotes the translation of works written in foreign languages. The company’s 40-year history includes translating plays from Spanish to English, including by Cardona herself. But she worries about the future of such funding in the current political atmosphere.
“There is certainly fear of calling attention to yourself and the work we’re doing,” Cardona says, “especially groups that work with vulnerable populations.”
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