Performing arts: the economic dilemma : a study of problems common to theater, opera, music, and dance /

578 Pages·14.384 MB·English

by  by William J. Baumol and William G. Bowen.

Performing Arts -
The Economic Dilemma
by WILLIAM J. BAUMOL
and WILLIAM G. BOWEN
A Study of Problems common to
Theater, Opera, Music and Dance
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY FUND
NEW YORK • 1966
KRAUS REPRINT CO.
Millwood, N.Y.
1978
The Twentieth Century Fund is an independent research foundation which undertakes
policy studies of economic, political and social institutions and issues. The Fund was founded
in 1919 and endowed by Edward A. Filene.
BOARD OF TRUSTEES
Morris B. Abram
John Paul Austin
Peter A. A. Berle
Jonathan B. Bingham
Arthur F. Burns (on leave)
Erwin D. Canham (on leave)
Hodding Carter III
Benjamin V. Cohen
Brewster C. Denny
Charles V. Hamilton
Patricia Roberts Harris
August Heckscher
Matina S. Horner
David E. Lilienthal
Georges-Henri Martin
Lawrence K. Miller
Don K. Price, Chairman
James Rowe
William D. Ruckelshaus
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.
Harvey I. Sloane, M.D.
Charles P. Taft
David B. Truman
Shirley Williams, M.P.
Jeffry Wurf
M. J. Rossant, Director
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Baumol, William J.
Performing arts.
Reprint of the ed. published by Twentieth Century
Fund, New York.
Bibliography: p.
Includes Index.
1. Performing arts—United States—Finance.
I. Bowen, William G., joint author. II. Title.
[PN2266.B38 1977] 338.4’7’7902 77-16008
ISBN 0-527-02813-4
FIRST PUBLISHED NOVEMBER 1966
REPRINTED JANUARY 1967
Copyright (c) 1966 by the Twentieth Century Fund, Inc.
Reprinted with permission of the Twentieth Century Fund.
KRAUS REPRINT CO.
A U.S. Division of Kraus-Thomson Organization Limited
Printed in U.S.A.
Lionel and Iris
from an old friend
and a new one
F O R E W O R D
W ™ more than usual satisfaction I write a brief word of in­
troduction upon publication of one of the Twentieth Century Fund’s
studies.
The economic condition of the performing arts has been of con­
cern to a growing number of people throughout the country and
(if I may add a personal word) has been a preoccupation of mine
since President Kennedy asked me to serve as his Special Consult­
ant, to look with a fresh eye at the life of the arts in the United
States. The Trustees of the Fund were enthusiastic about the pros­
pect of a study in this field, falling as it did within the broad range
of problems which present themselves to an advanced industrial
society when the material needs of life seem in a fair way of being
met and questions of values and goals begin to appear central.
The analysis which Professors Baumol and Bowen have now
completed is somber in its implications. The live performing arts,
they show, come within that sector of the economy where produc­
tivity cannot be increased at anything like the general rate. Costs,
therefore, inevitably mount; revenues do not keep pace. Others have
faced the fact that the live performing arts cannot expect to pay for
themselves without subsidies, direct or indirect; it was one of the
great merits of the Rockefeller Panel Report that it did not evade this
issue — a fact the more striking since the panel was composed to
so large an extent of businessmen who have traditionally shown
little patience with enterprises that could not show a profit. But the
present report goes beyond this recognition. Its originality — and
its ultimate importance — lie in the way it demonstrates that the
gap between income and costs is bound to grow over the years
ahead. It is not only that the live performing arts do not pay for
themselves, but that, within the developing economic system, they
will show deficits of increasing size.
vii
viii Foreword
The conclusions, disconcerting as they may at first appear,
should not discourage those who are responsible for the expanding
cultural institutions of the country. The arts are not alone in being
relatively incapable of keeping pace with the rising productivity
which is in so many other areas the hallmark of an economic sys­
tem like our own. One thinks immediately of education. Indeed, one
of the authors of this report came to the work directly from a study
of the economics of higher education. Though the differences be­
tween the two fields are significant, they are alike in being depend­
ent upon toil which is necessarily and inevitably time-consuming.
That '‘art is long” has been generally accepted as a fact of life; and
education, in spite of the tendency to speed things up, still moves
to the slow and often mysterious measure of the human mind.
A study of higher education twenty years ago would have shown
something like the outline of crisis which now confronts the live
performing arts. The educational crisis has now largely passed —
less because the nature of higher learning has changed than be­
cause new resources have been mobilized and have been brought
to bear in fresh ways upon a recognized need. Something of the same
kind will, we hope, take place in the case of the arts. This study does
not go into solutions, excepting insofar as it sketches broadly the
alternatives before those responsible for the life of the arts. Yet a
number of variables can be noted entering into the authors’ rather
startling predictions as to the size of the gap between income and
revenues which will exist in the future. Any one of these variables
may prove more favorable than is anticipated; and beyond such
novel but now accepted sources of support as corporations, founda­
tions and government, lies the possibility of elements or combina­
tions not at present foreseen.
A result of this study, it may be hoped, will be a raising of men’s
sights all along the line. To know the dimensions of a problem is
the first step in dealing with it; and one cannot but believe that
the American people, with their vast resources and with their readi­
ness to see the arts as crucial to a society worthy of their strength,
will assure something more than the precarious and unexamined
status that has heretofore been the lot of most artistic institutions.
Without wanting to apportion the economic charge, I suggest that
the analysis and the figures contained in this report point the way
Foreword ix
to a considerably larger contribution by government. The National
Arts Endowment began with a $10 million annual appropriation.
(The amount has subsequently been cut to $8.5 million.) But the
experience of the Endowment has already shown that the needs are
great, and can be met through a government program that neither
limits the freedom of the arts nor diminishes their quality. The sum
going to the National Endowment for the Arts seems dispropor­
tionately low; it is bound to seem quite hopelessly inadequate if it
is not at least doubled within the next five years. To say this is not
to belittle in any way the responsibility that falls to other agencies
of the national life, both public and private.
It remains to add a word about the genesis of this study. It was
conceived as an undertaking parallel to the inquiry of the Rocke­
feller Brothers panel, the one concentrating on policy recommenda­
tions, the other on the economic underpinning. Professors Baumol
and Bowen served as consultants to the Rockefeller panel; I was
a member of it. Throughout, the Twentieth Century Fund has been
shown many courtesies and been given much help by the staff
of the Special Studies Project of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and
by Miss Nancy Hanks, its Executive Secretary, in particular. It is
a pleasure to acknowledge this scholarly kinship, even though the
work of the two Funds proceeded independently, and though the
two studies have been issued with a year and a half between them.
To Professor Baumol and Professor Bowen I extend particular
thanks. It was not easy to find economists who would give to the
performing arts the prolonged and serious attention which is ordi­
narily given to more mundane concerns. We were fortunate in our
choice of two men who combined high professional skill with a sen­
sitivity to the arts. The following pages will be found, I think, to
reveal both these desirable qualities.
AUGUST HECKSCHER, Director
The Twentieth Century Fund
41 East 70 Street, New York City
July 1966
A C K N O W L E D G E M E N T S
T
A his is the section of the book in which it is customary for
authors to display their clean linen in public. Our difficulty is that
on this occasion the size of the wash is truly enormous. More than
most economic research, this study, in a field where little statistical
information had previously been publicly available, required the
cooperation of a vast number of individuals and institutions. A com­
plete list of those who supplied the necessary data and gave gen­
erously of their time would resemble a small-town telephone direc­
tory. The mountains of information necessary for a study of this
kind could not have been accumulated without the patient help and
interest of many persons involved in the administration of perform­
ing arts* organizations, both small and large. Our debt to them is
only dimly reflected by the attributions scattered through this vol­
ume. We are indebted also to the team of research assistants who
collected information for us throughout the country; the research
staff in Princeton who coded the data, prepared punch cards and
did a tremendous amount of calculating; the secretaries who typed
and retyped, and showed a gratifying interest in the contents of the
manuscript; and the several extremely knowledgeable persons who
read and commented on our manuscript in moments stolen from
their busy lives. We are deeply grateful for the help provided by all
these people, and regret that we are precluded by their monumental
number from listing them individually.
The study itself occupied a little more than two years. Most of
the work was pleasant (though not as glamorous as might be sup­
posed), some of it was very exacting, and all of it required a great
deal of hard work. Our location in Princeton proved fortunate in
several ways. First, the availability of local professional performing
* We want to register our protest against this barbaric expression at the
very outset. The arts do not perform. Unhappily, usage has left us no service­
able alternative.
xi
xii Acknowledgements
organizations enabled us to try out our ideas and techniques among
friends, who would overlook the mistakes of novices in their field
of activity. Second, we were able to employ a number of intelligent
and energetic students, who, because of their natural propensity
to remigrate homeward several times a year, were able to administer
audience surveys and collect statistics in widely separated geo­
graphic areas. We were extremely fortunate also to have available
in the community a considerable number of unusually able women
who were happy to undertake part-time work for us. And mathe-
matica, the consulting firm through whose facilities the study was
conducted, released us from mundane administrative duties while
unsparingly placing its technical resources at our disposal.
Above all, however, we must express our gratitude to the Twen­
tieth Century Fund, not only for having conceived and financed
the investigation, but for providing a perfect climate for our re­
search. The Fund’s willingness to extend help whenever help was
needed, the air of trust that characterized our relationship and its
scrupulous avoidance of interference in the details of our investiga­
tion made the Fund a model sponsor. We have deeply appreciated
the personal interest and encouragement of August Heckscher,
Director of the Twentieth Century Fund, Elizabeth Blackert, John
E. Booth, Barbara Donald and Ben T. Moore. Working with them
has been a great pleasure.
We must point out too the enormous amount of help we received
from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, whose staff gave us their full
and unstinting cooperation from the inception of that organiza­
tion’s own study of the performing arts. The availability of working
papers prepared for the panel and the ideas gleaned from meetings
of the panel were among the many contributions of the Rockefeller
Brothers Fund to our study.
Even though we provide no extensive listing of the names of
those who helped us, there are a few others whose contribution was
such that they simply cannot be omitted: the directors of our Eng­
lish study, Professor Claus Moser and Muriel Nissel; Virginia Geb-
hardt, who was our chief research associate throughout the investi­
gation; Linda Almgren, Roberta Morse and Taylor Reveley, who
saw us through the critical final months, and who, in the process,
regularly gave up nights and week ends; Dorothy Fabian, who con-
Acknowledgements xiii
ducted the cultural center analysis; Professor Stephen Goldfeld,
who helped with various statistical problems; Professor Charles
Westoff, who served as chief consultant on the development of our
audience questionnaire; Robert Bushnell, who more than met our
many exacting requirements in the computer programs he designed
for us; and Mrs. Katharine A. Beyer, our tactful and resourceful
editor, who, together with Mrs. Blackert, battled our pedantic pro­
pensities. No brief acknowledgement can capture the perspicacity,
care, and good sense which raised Mrs. Blackert’s contribution well
beyond that of any editor with whom either of us has ever been
associated in the past.
We must mention how very important were the contributions of
the persons, knowledgeable in the practices and institutions of the
performing arts, who so generously gave time to a reading of all
or part of an earlier (and less readable) version of this report. They
saved us from committing a number of errors of fact or interpreta­
tion. We are, therefore, highly indebted for their invaluable com­
ments to F. Emerson Andrews (Foundation Library Center), Isadora
Bennett, Ralph Burgard (Arts Councils of America), Irving W.
Cheskin (League of New York Theatres), Angus Duncan (Actors’
Equity), Lloyd H. Haldeman (Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra),
C. Harry Kahn (Rutgers), Herman E. Krawitz (Metropolitan
Opera), W. McNeil Lowry (Ford Foundation), Judith Marechal,
Thomas G. Moore (Michigan State University), Carlos Moseley
(New York Philharmonic), Helen M. Thompson (American Sym­
phony Orchestra League), Albert Webster (New York Philhar­
monic) and John F. Wharton.
Even more we must thank our wives. Besides displaying incred­
ible patience, such as they have contributed on many similar
occasions in the past, both played direct and crucial roles in this
project, one as coordinator of the audience data and the other as
executive secretary of the entire study.
Two writings which were especially helpful to us deserve more
than the usual footnote acknowledgements — an illuminating study
of the theater by Thomas G. Moore and an unusually penetrating
history of the theater by Emil J. Poggi. Unfortunately, neither of
these studies has as yet been published.
Nothing could be more natural than the dedication of this book
xiv Acknowledgements
to Lord and Lady Robbins, whose important role in the arts in Great
Britain is well known. Lord Robbins made many important contri­
butions to this volume, both direct and indirect: by discussing with
the authors the fundamentals of their approach, by preparing the
way for their English study, by having supervised the post-graduate
training of one of the authors (and hence having taught the other
at second remove). But it is primarily in gratitude for friendship
and inspiration that we dedicate this book to them.
Authors traditionally conclude prefaces by accepting full respon­
sibility for whatever errors remain in the book, and we see no
alternative but to acquiesce in this tradition, however much we
might like to shift whatever onus must be borne. Joint authors
sometimes append statements identifying the separate contribu­
tions (and therefore responsibilities) of each. This we cannot do,
for ours has been a truly common effort and an equal partnership
from the beginning, as the alphabetical listing of our names is
meant to indicate. Other persons contemplating joint ventures may
be encouraged to learn that two good friends, neither of whom is
naturally subservient or even reticent, were able to carry out an at
times frustrating project of unanticipated scope and complexity,
and still speak to each other quite civilly at the end. If anything,
the friendship has been strengthened by the bond formed in a
shared experience — something like going over Niagara Falls in
a barrel together.
W.J.B. and W.G.B.
Princeton, New Jersey
June 1966