‘Smashing our dreams’: NEA terminates grants for many Minnesota arts organizations
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Late in the evening on Friday, May 2, Amy Thomas, chief operating officer of Penumbra Theatre in St. Paul, received an email from the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency that provides tens of millions of dollars in grants each year to arts organizations and projects.
“We received an email, like many other organizations, late Friday night that let us know that our NEA grant was effectively terminated,” Thomas says.
The grant was for $55,000.
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“We actually were planning that this was going to happen based on the rhetoric that we've been hearing at the federal level,” Thomas says. “So it wasn't a surprise. It's disheartening.”
The NEA also terminated a $10,000 grant to Ananya Dance Theatre in St. Paul.
“It is sad that this is happening in our 20th anniversary season, and really smashing our dreams for the future,” says artistic director Ananya Chatterjea.
Smaller organizations hit hard
Scott Lykins, the artistic and executive director of the Lakes Area Music Festival in Brainerd, received the same email.
“First, I thought of our upcoming season and the immediate impacts on our budget. $20,000 is not a small amount of money for an organization like ours,” Lykins says.
Many other Minnesota arts organizations have confirmed with MPR News that their 2025 grants have been terminated. They include St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Ragamala Dance Company, TU Dance Center, Theatre Novi Most, The Alive & Kickin senior ensemble, Minnesota Latino Museum and Theater Mu.
FilmNorth — a nonprofit that supports local filmmaking — lost one grant, says business affairs director Bethany Gladhill. Another grant for workforce development, Gladhill says, still stands as of now.
New priorities reflect federal shift
In January, the NEA awarded grants to 35 Minnesota arts organizations statewide for a total of $882,500. The grants are reimbursable, so an arts organization will spend the allotted money and then invoice the NEA.
The termination email, which was provided to MPR News, states:
“The NEA is updating its grantmaking policy priorities to focus funding on projects that reflect the nation's rich artistic heritage and creativity as prioritized by the President. Consequently, we are terminating awards that fall outside these new priorities.”
It continues: “The NEA will now prioritize projects that elevate the Nation's HBCUs and Hispanic Serving Institutions, celebrate the 250th anniversary of American independence, foster AI competency, empower houses of worship to serve communities, assist with disaster recovery, foster skilled trade jobs, make America healthy again, support the military and veterans, support Tribal communities, make the District of Columbia safe and beautiful and support the economic development of Asian American communities. Funding is being allocated in a new direction in furtherance of the Administration's agenda.”
MPR News has requested comment from the NEA.
The grant terminations follow updated restrictions that the NEA announced in January to comply with executive orders issued by President Trump.
These restrictions stated that grant recipients could not promote diversity, equity, inclusion and “gender ideology.” At that time, some grant recipients, such as the Guthrie Theater and The Playwrights’ Center, rejected grant funds because of these restrictions.
Theater Mu in St. Paul lost $20,000 in grant funds for the production of “50 Boxes of Earth,” which ran in March. Managing director Anh-Thu T. Pham says Theater Mu has been fortunate because the Venturous Theater Fund provided them additional funding when the NEA grant was terminated.
“But it was not fully able to cover the deficit. The gap in funding this season means we are not holding a playwright cohort, which we had originally planned on doing,” Pham says. “Moving forward, not just the NEA but the ripple effects of the scope of funding for companies like Theater Mu is extremely concerning.”
The shift in NEA priorities, Pham explains, will hinder the theater’s ability to “work with people who traditionally do not have the same access to the arts or our work — some for the first time.”
Thomas of Penumbra says the grant funds would have been used to support the production of a new play about discriminatory practices and racial trauma in the health care industry.
“I have really grave concerns about what all this means in terms of freedom of artistic expression,” Thomas says. “I've never seen grant funding proactively pulled and also certainly pulled because it's supposed to meet a specific content agenda.”
“An NEA grant is a hard-won honor,” according to Teri Deaver, managing director of Alive & Kickin. “It's a true private/public partnership, and any cutback or loss of funding is devastating to the health of arts nonprofits and the quality arts programming they deliver to the community every day.”
Brainerd festival faces budget shortfall
The Lakes Area Music Festival in Brainerd, which begins July 25, is an annual month-long classical event that brings in about 250 artists from orchestras and operas around the country.
Lykins says the festival applied for this grant a year ago and included the awarded funds in their budget.
“Now that we have extended contracts to our artists and made plans for this season — that will be a shortfall that we'll have to make up for in some way,” Lykins says.
“Something that was hard for me to get around was reading that funding will be focused on projects that reflect the nation's rich artistic heritage and creativity, as prioritized by the president, at the same time when that president is also calling for this agency's elimination, is pretty telling,” Lykins says.
Minnesota dance leaders warn of community impact
Abdo Sayegh Rodriguez is the executive director of TU Dance, a modern dance company and school in St. Paul, and the board chair for Dance/USA, a national service organization for professional dance. In 2024, TU Dance was awarded an NEA grant to support its 20th anniversary with a Spring Dance Concert April 25-26, 2025, at The O'Shaughnessy in St. Paul.
“We spent $15,000, and more in our production,” Sayegh Rodriguez says. “So, the fact that the award is withdrawn this late, and that we will not be receiving the funds, creates a big problem for our organization.”
Sayegh Rodriguez says the grant terminations are bigger than one organization.
“We offer scholarships for students that cannot pay for classes. We are able to bring artists of color from outside the state and perform their choreographies,” he says. “Audiences need to know that this is real. This is affecting the way in which an organization like ours can support the community itself.”
Ananya Chatterjea of Ananya Dance Theatre says the NEA has historically been the most “prestigious” arts-granting agency in the U.S., but that’s now changing.
“To know that suddenly we are out of this chunk of money that we have spent already, that was a first shock, but also, what is going to happen to the field? My head has been spinning,” says Chatterjea, who is also a professor of dance at the University of Minnesota. “I don't quite know what's going to happen or how we're going to cope.”
Chatterjea and Sayegh Rodriguez also both received email notices that the NEA staff leading the dance program announced their resignations through the Deferred Resignation Program, a voluntary departure process recently offered to employees.
In a public letter, they said the decision was difficult but necessary, and expressed pride in their years supporting the dance field. They will remain at the agency through the end of May.
