The Arts Were Never an Economic Instrument: Gary Andersen, Theatre, Human Experience & Arts Funding

Gary Anderson joins Kristin to discuss Plowshares Theatre's new production, Roberto Clemente: A Diamond Within, a play developed over two years and written by Afro-Puerto Rican playwright Cándido Tirado, opening at the Marlene Boll Theatre in June. The play tells the story of Roberto Clemente, the Afro-Puerto Rican Pittsburgh Pirates player who faced discrimination as both a Black man and a Latino, played through chronic back pain, and was a serious civil rights advocate and humanitarian (baseball's humanitarian award now bears his name). The production grew out of Anderson's pandemic-era initiative, Black Theatre Latin Roots, which explores the histories of African-descended peoples across the Americas—reflecting that the majority of enslaved Africans were taken to the Caribbean, Central, and South America rather than the continental U.S. Anderson frames it as the first of an ongoing play-development effort, not a one-off.

The conversation's core is arts funding, where Anderson delivers a detailed history and critique:

• Michigan's collapse. In 1990, Michigan ranked second nationally (behind New York) in per-capita arts appropriation. Governor John Engler eliminated the standalone state arts agency by executive order in 1991, folding it into the Department of Commerce and reorienting its mandate purely around economic impact. Today the Michigan Arts and Culture Council sits inside the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, and the state spends roughly 97 cents per citizen, ranking around 28th nationally.
• Minnesota as the model. A 2008 constitutional amendment (the Legacy Amendment) created a three-eighths-of-one-percent sales tax funding education, environment, and arts and culture. The arts share (~19.25%) has generated roughly $1.2 billion for the arts over 18 years, with Minnesota now spending about $10.07 per citizen—and Anderson argues the predicted negative consequences (people leaving, divestment) never materialized.
• Distribution and equity. Anderson advocates for subject-matter experts and artists in grant decisions rather than politicians, raises giving circles as an alternative to donor-advised funds (which he sees as enabling community foundations to halt gifts under political pressure), and names the racial and cultural uniformity of Michigan's largest cultural institutions as a product of design, not accident.

Anderson's central thesis throughout: the arts were never meant as an economic instrument. They are how humans investigate what it means to be human, project their values, and build social cohesion—he points to post–Civil War community brass bands as a tool for reknitting divided communities, and connects the decline in public arts participation to the loneliness epidemic, the erosion of civil society, and a culture increasingly defined by fear, dehumanization, and exploitation. The arts, he argues, are a necessary counter-narrative. He also makes the case for funding Black and Brown theater specifically: exposure to stories told from other cultural perspectives enriches everyone and challenges the arrogance of assuming all truth resides in one people's story.

The episode closes with Anderson's deeply personal "why"—seeing the original 1988 Broadway production of Fences (with James Earl Jones), which spoke so directly to his estranged relationship with his late father. Years later, directing the same play as a father in his 40s, he identified instead with Troy, the father—illustrating his point that great art gives back something new each time you return to it. That experience, the capacity of theater to make an audience member feel seen, is why he does the work.