BALTIMORE — The choice facing Adam Frank, managing director of Baltimore Center Stage, is no choice at all — swear off the theater’s decadeslong practice of showcasing diverse voices, or wave goodbye to any chance of federal funding in the future.

“Our staff, our board, and the stories on our stages all include Black people, white people, Jewish people, trans people, straight people, gay people and people of many other backgrounds and experiences,” Frank told The Sun.

“Without them, we would not be who we are, and we would not represent our beloved Baltimore region. If the federal government wants us to change that commitment, we will say ‘no thank you.'”

Frank was reacting to President Donald Trump’s efforts to redraw the national arts landscape. They are initiatives that, if successful, are likely to impact every performing group and museum in Maryland.

Earlier this month, the National Endowment for the Arts, the federal agency tasked with providing financial support to cultural groups nationwide, made an abrupt about-face on the types of projects it is willing to fund.

The NEA has promised more than $1.85 million this year to state arts groups, either as grants to individual organizations or through a funding chunk provided to the Maryland State Arts Council, which passes along that money to nearly 300 cultural organizations.

“The current president is using the power of his executive branch in a very abusive way,” said Jack Danna, director of commercial revitalization for the Central Baltimore Partnership, which operates the Station North Arts District. His organization has been promised a $90,000 NEA grant for this year.

Nonetheless, Maryland arts groups say they they won’t surrender their values just to pad their pocketbooks.

The Sun spoke to representatives of half a dozen arts groups statewide. None said they would consider backing away from diversity and accessibility initiatives just to qualify for federal funding. Many also expressed their distaste for the president’s executive order in strong terms.

“We’re not going to pull back on our mission to celebrate diversity to meet this very parochial and mean-spirited order,” Danna said. ”We won’t do it. That’s not who we are.”

On Feb. 7, the president removed Baltimore Orioles owner David Rubenstein as chairman of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the nation’s cultural center.

Trump said he would serve as chairman himself, in part because he objected to the Center scheduling a drag show for minors. He later replaced 18 board members with his own appointees. On Wednesday, the board fired longtime Kennedy Center president Deborah F. Rutter.

”I have been motivated my whole life by the fundamental values of America,” Rutter wrote in a farewell statement provided to The Sun, “[Of] freedom, equality and a deep belief in the American dream.”

Next year might be a different story for NEA funding in Maryland.

The NEA canceled a grant program for fiscal year 2025-26 that supplied up to $10,000 for smaller arts groups and those located in underserved communities — the organizations for which even a relatively small financial loss can mean the difference between flourishing and flailing.

These groups were told that they could apply instead for the more competitive Grants for Arts Projects Program.

But now that program comes with a new string attached: Applicants must attest that none of their programs promote “gender ideology” or “diversity, equity, and inclusion” in violation of federal anti-discrimination laws.

Elizabeth Auclair, assistant director of public affairs for the NEA, wrote in an email that legally the endowment didn’t have any other option.

”It is a longstanding requirement that all recipients of federal funds comply with applicable anti-discrimination laws, regulations and executive orders,” she wrote, including Trump’s Jan. 20 directive declaring diversity programs to be “illegal and immoral.”

The NEA also said it will give priority to proposals that fit into the nation’s 250th anniversary celebration of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

Programming around the upcoming anniversary in 2026 has been highlighted in NEA guidelines for several years, Auclair said, adding, “The NEA will also continue to fund projects that do not include an America250 focus.”

The Endowment’s actions follow similar steps taken by The Smithsonian Institute, which told The Sun it has closed its diversity office, and the National Gallery of Art, which has shuttered its office of belonging and inclusion.

“The irony is that a lot of the Challenge America grants were directed towards art projects in small town America,” Danna said. “This is going to hurt Trump’s base.”

Some arts advocates are concerned that the new administration is trying to control how Americans think by limiting the ideas to which they are exposed.

“That’s the part that’s really scary,” said Alice Nappy, president and executive director of VisArts, a Rockville organization that helps disabled adults and kids create and exhibit their artworks. VisArts learned last month that it has been awarded a $15,000 grant from the NEA.

They worry that federally funded cultural programming in the future will be devoid of even a whiff of controversy, that it will devolve into an endless loop of productions of such patriotic musicals as “1776” and possibly “Annie” with its a whole-hearted endorsement of kindly capitalist billionaires.

“Art is for everyone, and not everyone has the same taste. Art opens up our eyes to the whole world and introduces us to different ideas and cultures,” Nappy said. “If you’re not exposed to these things, you can’t learn from them. Even if you don’t like the things you’re seeing, they certainly provoke conversation.”

The NEA handed out $995,800 this year to the Maryland State Arts Council, which distributed those funds to 291 local cultural groups. In addition, the endowment gave $855,000 in direct grants to 30 Maryland groups this year, according to the organization’s Maryland fact sheet.

While NEA grants generally represents just a small fraction of arts groups’ budget (for example, it amounts to less than 3% of the Arts Council’s $34 million in revenues) that doesn’t mean it’s easy money to forfeit.

”Fundraising for the arts is challenged already,” said Marissa LaRose, managing director of Baltimore’s Everyman Theatre.

“Nobody wants to hear this, but we’re still in pandemic recovery mode. To turn around a funding gap is not something you can do quickly,” LaRose said. “You have to build up to it. So to be faced with something like this is really discouraging.”

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