Twin Cities Thrive Through the Arts
M I N N E A P O L I S, May 15, 2002 -- How do you make a city grow and thrive? Minneapolis says the answer is in the arts.
Minneapolis has become a city that grows art patrons. In 2000 there were almost 2 ½ million tickets sold to theater performances alone.
A wide array of art and entertainment has helped turn the Twin Cities into a place where people want to live, and where 15 Fortune 500 companies want to continue to grow. They know the arts are a powerful development strategy.
"The fact that we have a strong arts community as well is attractive to workers who are interested in either relocating here or staying here," said Teresa Eyring, the managing director of the Children's Theater Company in Minneapolis.
The statistics are staggering. It's not just one theater, or one museum or one orchestra: Minneapolis and St. Paul have two nationally recognized orchestras; there are 217 theater groups in the state, 167 museums and galleries and 336 music organizations. And five of the top 15 Minnesota tourist attractions are arts institutions.
"There's lots of breadth, lots of support, lots of space created for individuals to do something," said Lou Bellamy, the founder and the artistic director of St. Paul's Penumbra Theater.
In case there was any doubt on the arts' value, some 92 percent of residents say the arts are crucial to their quality of life, according to a Minnesota Center for Survey Research poll from 1998. "It's essential to my lifestyle," said Minneapolis arts patron Roy Close. "It's very important."
Some 60 percent of Minnesotans polled say they are involved in the arts by "engaging in some creative activity in their everyday lives."
"There's a very real belief that culture and the arts are at the center of community life," said Joe Dowling, the artistic director for the Guthrie Theater. "That you don't find in every place."
Not Without a Cost
This committed investment in the arts comes with a hefty price tag. Minnesota appropriated $13 million for the arts and received 51 grants and a total of $3.2 million from the National Endowment for the Arts in 2001. And according to the Minnesota Council of Foundations, private, corporate and public foundations gave more than $95 million to arts and cultural groups in 1999.
Is there a downside to all this arts investment and spending?
"Well, the downside is that you build something like this, you build the kind of infrastructure that we've got … you've got to maintain it," said Neal Cuthbert, the arts program director at the McKnight Foundation, a private philanthropic organization that provides funding for arts projects. "That's not real sexy work. It's bread-and-butter work."
Many of the arts organizations are facing that very problem, and asking citizens, corporations and government to reinvest in the arts so they can continue to grow and meet the demand of this community.
At the Guthrie Theater, Dowling is attempting to lead the theater in a $125 million expansion.
"This is a critical time for the Guthrie," said Dowling. "It's a critical time for arts in Minnesota."
A few blocks away, the Children's Theater Company is also hoping to expand to better serve its demanding audience.
"Our audience is three times as big now as it was when we first opened here," said Eyring. "And we're really bursting at the seams."
Both groups are waiting to see if the state will approve bond money for their expansion.
In St. Paul, Penumbra Theater is celebrating the 25th anniversary on its original stage. Bellamy worries that with so many organizations in need of support, there might not be enough for everyone.
"There's only so much of anything and that's why I say the community has to do some long-range thing about what they want this artistic landscape to be," said Bellamy.
"We hope and believe that the state should invest in the future of an organization like this because that is an investment in its own community," said Dowling.
ABCNEWS' Justine Schiro produced the story for World News Tonight.