Even if you’ve never read the quote, you’ve no doubt seen the meme, in all of its arts-affirming, damn the torpedoes glory. Just one small detail: it isn’t true.

I am referring to the story that goes as follows, and here I’ll quote an op-ed piece from TheHill.com, dated February 19, 2017:

At the height of WWII, Winston Churchill was challenged to defend a budget that called for an increase in arts funding.

“How can you propose this at a time of extreme national crisis?” asked one member of Parliament.

Churchill replied, “I do it, sir, to remind us what we are fighting for.”

That’s one of the longer versions of the account. You may have seen it as, “During WWII, Churchill was asked to cut funding for the arts. He replied, ‘Then what are we fighting for?’,” or, “When Churchill was asked to cut arts funding in favour of the war effort, he simply replied, ‘Then what are we fighting for?’”

There are countless iterations.

They are all fake history, recycled endlessly by arts advocates because the story fits a narrative we want to tell, because support of the arts in the face of the horror of the Holocaust and World War II is just so perfect. So it figures that it’s too good to be true.

Many times when you see this quote, you’ll even see a source. But those sources never lead you to a piece of primary research proving that Churchill said it, or a video clip of him actually saying it. Instead, it’s one big echo chamber, in which people cite other people who shared the quote, none of whom provide a footnote as to its veracity.

That said, a bit of online searching will bring you to generally reliable sources that claim to have researched the quote and found it wanting. Now to be fair, there’s a certain circularity in the debunking as well. Snopes.com has a piece dated just weeks ago, which cites historian Richard Langworth debunking the quote in a 2009 blog post, “Safeguarding The Arts.” The recent inquiry from Snopes prompted Langworth to refashion his answer under the banner of The Churchill Project at Hillsdale College in Michigan, but save for replacing who asked the question of him, his answer is consistent.

Andrew Eaton, writing in The Scotsman in 2011, allowed that the provenance of the quote was in dispute. An article from The Conversation.com says the quote is fake, sourcing it to a piece in the Village Voice in 2008, but their source, if you follow the links, is once again Langworth.  Fortunately, Snopes also checked with the International Churchill Society, where a representative declared the statement “quite bogus.”

Using this quote in fighting to stave of arts cuts in the US is, ultimately, a disservice to the effort. Why? Because if the quote cannot be unequivocally verified, then its deployment counts as fake news. That opens up anyone who uses it to having all of their arguments, no matter how valid the others may be, dismissed out of hand. The very people who are quick to brandish the pejorative “fake facts” against things with which they simply disagree will have a field day with claims that are demonstrably false, even if veracity isn’t central to their own arguments. One anti-liberal bias site, also looking to Langworth, took this on in 2012 when Chris Matthews cited the quote, so this isn’t exactly flying under the radar.

This should not discount the idea that Churchill didn’t support the arts. Reliable sources quote him as saying, at an April 30, 1953 Royal Academy Banquet, “The arts are essen­tial to any com­plete national life. The State owes it to itself to sus­tain and encour­age them…Ill fares the race which fails to salute the arts with the rev­er­ence and delight which are their due.”

One must wonder why the British Churchill, who died at almost 90 years old in 1965, perseveres as the go-to defender of the arts in America today. Looking closer to home, even if the remarks were the work of a speechwriter, President John F. Kennedy, whose White House regularly welcomed artists to perform, has a series of quotes about the arts emblazoned on the rear balcony of The Kennedy Center, all suitable for memeing.

“This country cannot afford to be materially rich and spiritually poor.”

“I look forward to an America which will reward achievement in the arts as we reward achievement in business or statecraft.”

“To increase respect for the creative individual, to widen participation by all the processes and fulfillments of art — this is one of the fascinating challenges of these days.”

“There is a connection, hard to explain logically but easy to feel, between achievement in public life and progress in the arts.”

As mentioned previously, the specious Churchill quote made perhaps its most recent appearance in an op-ed at TheHill.com. Regrettably, the authors of the piece are Earle I. Mack is chairman emeritus of the New York State Council on the Arts, Randall Bourscheidt is president emeritus of the Alliance for the Arts, and Robert L. Lynch is president and CEO of Americans for the Arts. A Google search on their version of the quote reveals only a single match, namely their article. Their use doesn’t even mirror other faulty citations.

 By all means, let’s write our own words in defense of the arts, and arts funding, and let’s cite the very best comments made by others in support of that case. But unless someone produces irrefutable proof that Churchill said what he is so often quoted as saying about “what are we fighting for,” it’s time to put it away for good. Opposing the truism advanced in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, we cannot afford to print the legend, we must stand with the objective truth.

P.S. If anyone actually can prove that the “what are we fighting for” story is verifiably true, please shout the proof out loudly.

The 2012 NEA SSPA Report

If yesterday’s news that theatre attendance is down more precipitously than any of the arts caused you to spit out your coffee over breakfast, well that’s probably because you haven’t been paying attention. To be fair, I suspect a lot of people haven’t been, with virtually every discussion of the performing arts in since 2008 having been prefaced with either “in these challenging times” or “since the financial meltdown of 2008.” But the time for qualifiers and excuses is clearly past, especially as every news report on American life in general seems to invoke the fairly recent cliché “the new normal.” Things have changed. Things are changing. Things will change. The arts need to change.

In citing slides of 9% for musical theatre and 12% for non-musicals over the past five years, and even more pronounced numbers over a longer range, the picture painted by the NEA shows an overall decline in arts attendance, with theatre hardest hit. Coming just days after some co-mingled summary numbers from an Americans for the Arts report suggested theatre might be looking up, it was certainly startling news. But a closer look at the latter study actually confirms the reported  NEA trend.

Looking elsewhere, the same picture appears. The last Theatre Communications Group “Theatre Facts” report, covering results from 2008 to 2012, shows a 1.8% decline in attendance in the portion of their membership studied – not as pronounced as the NEA figures, but certainly heading the wrong way as well. It’s also important to remember that as expansive as it is, TCG itself is only a subset of overall US theatres. In a more easily defined theatrical realm of activity, Broadway in the same period shows a 5% audience decline, with a 17%  increase in income, suggesting an increasingly inaccessible theatrical realm, and an economic model that will only further stratify audiences.

The Ticketmaster UK Report

The only encouragement that one might wish to cling to is a report from Ticketmaster’s analytics division, which shows stunningly positive stats about arts participation by younger audiences (including a snappy infographic). While it hints that there might be some lessons to be learned, we’d have to go to England to get them, because the study is entitled State of Play: Theatre UK. While it does include some US audience members (as well as a selection from Ireland, Germany and Australia), the US sample represents only 13% of the total, with 65% from the UK. Also, under theatre, Ticketmaster has folded in opera and dance, so it’s not a true apples to apples comparison.

Now I am one of the many who believes that theatre as a discipline will manage to survive the onslaught of electronic entertainment precisely because it is live and fundamentally irreproducible. We may be a niche, but there will always be those who treasure being in the same room with artists as art is created; I have often joked that theatre will only be in real danger when Star Trek: TNG’s holodeck becomes reality. Even these reports don’t sway me from that conceptual position. But I’m not sticking my head in the sand either.

Appreciation of the arts is, for many, something that is learned in childhood – namely in schools. Yet we only have to read about the state of public education to know that resources are diminished, anything that isn’t testable is expendable, and fewer students are being exposed to arts education than they were years ago. Citing the 2008 NEA SSPA report: “In 1982, nearly two-thirds of 18-year-olds reported taking art classes in their childhood. By 2008, that share had dropped below one-half, a decline of 23 percent.” In less than 30 years, inculcation in the arts through the schools declined notably, so is it any wonder that we’re seeing declines in arts participation over time?

In a 2012 Department of Education study, it was reported that “the percentages of schools making [music and visual arts] available went from 20 percent 10 years ago to only 4 and 3 percent, respectively, in the 2009-10 school year.  In addition, at more than 40 percent of secondary schools, coursework in arts was not required for graduation in the 2009-10 school year.” That’s all the more reason to be concerned. Certainly many arts organizations have committed to working with or in schools, but are the programs comprehensive enough? We’ve become ever more sophisticated in how to create truly in-depth, ongoing education experiences, but perhaps in doing so, we’re reaching fewer students. Maybe we have to look at how to restore sheer numbers as part of that equation, while maintaining quality, to insure our own future.

Art from Americans for the Arts report

It’s time to make an important distinction. As I said, I believe ‘theatre’ will survive for years to come. Where we would do well to focus immediate attention is on our ‘theatres,’ our companies. On a micro basis, it may be easy to shrug off declines, especially if you happen to be affiliated with a company that is bucking the trend. But these reports with their macro view should take each and every theatre maker and theatre patron outside of the specifics of their direct experience to look at the field, not simply year to year, but over time. It suggests that there is a steady erosion in the theatergoing base, which hasn’t necessarily found a new level; just as a rising tide floats all boats, eventually our toys lie at the bottom of the tub once the drain is opened.

I don’t have the foresight to know where this will lead. One direction is that of Broadway, where the consistently risky business model favors shows that are built for the truly long run, but only for the select audiences with the resources to support ever increasing prices. Might that be mirrored in the not-for-profit community as well, with only the largest and most established companies able to secure audiences and funding if resources and interest truly diminish? Or might we see a shift away from institutions and edifices and towards more grass roots companies, where simpler theatre at lower prices and more basic production values finds the favor of those who still harbor an appetite for live drama?

I’ll make a prediction. While in the first half of my life I watched the bourgeoning of the resident theatre movement, which in turn seeded the growth of countless smaller local companies, my later years will see a contraction in overall production at the professional level; it’s already begun, as a few companies seem to go under every year and have been for some time. That means that it will become ever harder for people to make their lives in theatre, because there will be fewer job opportunities for them.

Since I’ve already employed science fiction in my argument, let me turn to it again. We’ve all seen or read stories where someone goes back in time to right some past wrong (and for the moment, let’s forget that they often as not ruin the future in the process). Is there a point where we could or should make some fundamental change in how theatre functions – not as an art, but as an industry? Is there a single watershed moment where one choice determined the course of the field that some future time traveler could set right? I suspect not, unless we were talking about preventing (in succession) the discovery of electricity, the invention of TV and movies, or the creation of the internet.

That’s why we have to shift the paradigm now, and not just worry about selling tickets to the current show or meeting next year’s budget, but focus on what’s truly sustainable in 10, 25 or 50 years time. This week’s data barrage shows one thing we mustn’t ignore: even if we can’t see it in our own day to day experience, what we’re doing now isn’t working and the tide is going out.

My thanks to Mariah MacCarthy, who brought the 2008 NEA SSPA Report summary and the 2012 Department of Education report to my attention.

If you’ve been reading The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times this week, attempting to find out how the arts as a whole are doing, you would likely get a fairly consistent picture coming from the efforts of those two sources, and it doesn’t bode well for the arts in America. But if your focus happens to be on theatre, your head might spin from seeming conflicts.

On Monday, September 23, in The Los Angeles Times, Mike Boehm reported the Americans for the Arts just issued National Arts Index of arts participation, complete through 2011. He wrote, using their executive summary, “The report noted ‘overall increases’ in theater and symphony attendance in 2011, and drops for opera and movies.” Good news for the theatre crowd, right?

Well this morning, Patricia Cohen, writing in The New York Times about the National Endowment for the Arts newly released “Highlights from the 2012 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts,” made the startling statement that “theater is the artistic discipline in America that is losing audience share at the fastest rate in recent years.” Scary, no?

So the question is, are these reports in conflict? Is there some underlying difference in methodology that has yielded markedly different results? Is it because the Americans for the Arts report is only through 2011, while the National Endowment for the Arts report is through 2012?

Much as I’d like to tell you that things are not as negative as the New York Times story makes it seem, the discrepancy is in fact due largely to aggregation of disciplines on the Americans for the Arts summary, while the NEA report keeps each art form distinct – as does the full text of the Americans for the Arts study.  The rosier picture Boehm drew from Americans for the Arts emerged because it merges theatre with symphony and opera and, perhaps to the surprise of many, the latter disciplines had a very good year in 2011.

From the Americans for the Arts Report

Symphony and opera attendance increased by almost 3 million from 2010 to 2011, while theatre attendance was down by about 300,000 in the same period. So in merging, the loss in theatre is masked by the jump in symphony and opera. The discrete numbers in the NEA report, sampled in 2002, 2008 and 2012, show an ongoing decline for theatre, with the rate of change for musicals at -9% and the rate of change for plays at -12%. This mirrors an aggregate decline from 50 million to 45.2 million theatre patrons over the period from 2003 to 2011, as shown by Americans for the Arts.

From the National Endowment for the Arts report

So while summaries may indicate that there’s some upside for theatre, the detail of the reports are quite clear: theatergoing is trending down. If there’s another comprehensive report that actually challenges this data, it would be good to see it, but if the combined results from these two central representatives and supporters of the arts in America have yielded comparable results, the wake up call for theatre cannot be sounded any more loudly and clearly. No one should cling to shreds seemingly offered in a part of one study. To be sure, theatre’s overall attendance numbers far outpace symphony, opera and dance combined, but the trend doesn’t look good at all. And with arts attendance/participation in general decline, can theatre collectively get its act together to stop the bleeding, let alone reverse course?

I urge anyone working in the arts, in any discipline, to study both of these reports carefully. By all means, get beyond summaries and condensations. I’ve only focused on a few pages and I’m quite certain we’ve got a lot more to learn if we’re going to be able to generate good news about the field again and continue to make the case for the vitality and centrality of the arts in American life.

P.S. When a government agency and an advocacy group agree about the problems in American arts, wouldn’t it be nice if our president cared enough to even nominate someone to run the Endowment? The clock keeps ticking, but that’s the only sound we hear.