Why do the Arts Matter in New York State?

The following information comes from the Arts NYS Coalition: Helping the Arts to Thrive in New York State

For more on these statistics, visit their site

Why do the Arts Matter in New York State?

Because…

1. New York State is home to 53,085 arts-related businesses that employ 335,683 people. >more
   
2. New York City’s nonprofit cultural sector generated $5.8 billion in economic impact and 40,500 jobs. >more
   
3. The economic impact of Westchester County’s nonprofit arts and culture industry is $119.88 million with 3779 jobs. >more
   
4. Greater Buffalo’s Economic Impact of Nonprofit Arts and Culture Organizations is $155.2 million. >more
   
5. The nonprofit arts and culture are a $21 million industry in the Northern Adirondack region that supports 506 jobs. >more
   
6. The Arts in Onondaga County yields $70 million and 1060 jobs. >more
   
7. In Monroe County, the arts have an annual economic impact of roughly $200 million and yield over 6,300 jobs.
   
   
   

Tax credit to benefit Off-Off Broadway

On the morning of January 21st, members of arts, cultural and theatre tasks forces from Manhattan Community Boards (CB) gathered at Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer’s office to present a proposal that is currently being considered by the CBs that would help financially pressed Off-Off-Broadway theatres.

This demonstration was in response to a challenge that President Stringer made in February of 2009 at a joint public forum on the state of small to mid-sized theatres in NYC that was hosted by Community Boards 1 – 5. “Hold us [elected officials] to a higher standard” he said, “give us a roadmap to the products you expect.” The Community Boards took this challenge to heart.

Committees were mobilized in an effort to find “innovative solutions to remedy the current fiscal and real estate crises that are endangering… theatres and other performing arts organizations throughout New York City.” Over the last year hundreds of emails have been sent and dozens of roundtables and meetings were held to gather information and prioritize the needs of the independent theatre community. At the top of the list was affordable rehearsal and performance space...READ THE FULL STORY

Two New Theatre Sites Are Born

In this economic climate, it's inspiring to see colleagues focus on their passions, both on stage and off. In a time when the arts have to struggle to keep themselves in the news, I caught up with two innovative entrepreneurs who have recently launched theatre websites that make it a point to include Off-Off Broadway in their coverage. Read on as Molly Marinik from Theatre is Easy and Karen Tortora-Lee of The Happiest Medium talk about what inspires them to help keep Off-Off Broadway talked about.

Read the full story...

Contributed by Morgan Lindsey Tachco

OOB theatre needs idea bank

The New York IT Awards is collecting needs and suggestions from the NYC theatre community to the City of New York, and asks for your contributions.

It is our hope to collect the community's needs as a whole, and put together a master list of items when making presentations to community boards, arts task forces, and city officials.

If you are inclined (even one suggestion), copy and paste the following information into the comments below. If you prefer anonymity, email your suggestions to community@nyitawards.com.

COPY AND PASTE THE FOLLOWING TEXT
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Name:
Organization:
Email:
Date:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
SUGGESTIONS:

1)
2)
3)
4)
5)

Thank you for your participation, and don't forget to spread the word!

Please Help NYTE Win a $5,000 Grant from Microsoft

From Rochelle Denton

Today I write to ask for about 10 minutes of your time to help nytheatre.com and The New York Theatre Experience, Inc., win a grant from Microsoft.

We have entered the "Show Your Impact" Contest, which is sponsored by TechSoup and Microsoft Corporation. The winners of this contest -- there will be three -- will each receive a $5,000 cash grant from Microsoft plus $25,000 in donated software. For a technology-based small nonprofit company like ours, this is a fantastic opportunity! And we believe we have a shot at winning.

To enter the contest, we had to write a "story" about the impact that Microsoft software, which we received via their donation program with TechSoup, has had on our organization and on the community of theatre-goers and theatre-makers we serve.

We now need to get our friends and supporters to go online to the "Show Your Impact" contest website and vote for our submission. So this is where you come in: please follow the link below, register, and vote for nytheatre.com:

http://www.showyourimpact.org/microsoft/gallery

The public voting process ends on Friday, June 5, and then the top vote getters in each category will move on to the finals, to be judged by Microsoft and TechSoup.

Anyone can vote. It will take you a few minutes: the contest rules require that you register (all they ask for is an email address) and also that you vote for a minimum of 3 projects (so you can't just vote for us--you have to pick a couple of other projects in order for your vote to be counted). It's kind of complicated and I'm sorry about that--but if you'll bear with the process and vote, we will be very appreciative!

Our submission is called nytheatre.com. Our submission date is 5/20/2009. Our category is "Optimize Mission Delivery." There can only be one winner per category, so you'll maximize our chance to win by not selecting any other entries in that category.

Please pass this information along to anyone you think would like to help us! Your support is enormously appreciated.

And please take a few moments to read our submission entry, which details some of the work we've done over the past several years to prepare nytheatre.com and our other websites for Web 2.0 and beyond. Your comments and thoughts are welcome!

But the bottom line, once again: please vote for our submission to help us win this grant from Microsoft. Click here:

http://www.showyourimpact.org/nytheatrecom

Read our story, register, and vote for us. Thank you!

Email me if you have questions. Learn more about TechSoup, the great nonprofit organization that has put together this contest, here.

Rochelle Denton

www.nytheatre.com