Providing Economic Relief to the Arts: The DAWN Act

Be an Arts Hero, a national, non-partisan, grassroots effort comprised of arts and culture workers, labor unions, and major institutions across the country, is urging the federal government to allocate proportionate relief to the $877 billion arts and culture sector of the American economy.

The goal would be to immediately direct economic relief for arts workers, which includes passing a Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation (FPUC), passing a 100 percent Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA), and passing the Defend Arts Workers Now (DAWN) Act.

Proposed and drafted by Matthew-Lee Erlbach, Carson Elrod, Jenny Grace Makholm, and Brooke Ishibashi, four passionate actors and writers, the letter detailing the specifics of the DAWN Act has over 10,000 signatures and 30,000 shares. It has been endorsed by every major arts organization as well as Pulitzer, Tony, Oscar, and Emmy winners. Honestly, there are too many celebrities to count.

Because of the severe impact the COVID-19 pandemic has caused on the arts communities, Erlbach, Elrod, Makholm, and Ishibashi are looking to change the way the arts and culture sector of our world is perceived and respected in our government. Substantial relief is needed.

In Colorado alone, 103,401 jobs are within the arts. The arts drive small businesses and a booming tourism industry, making the state a cultural destination worth billions.

Erlbach took some time to answer some questions about the DAWN Act for OUT FRONT.

Hi, Matt! Thank you for taking some time to chat with me. How are you doing during these unprecedented times?
Oh, boy [laughs]. You got three hours? You got three months? It’s strange. It feels like this is a time full of a lot of things. Rage, desperation, hope. I feel very proactive and optimistic, but an awakening is happening right now. A long-overdue awakening. It is an emotional awakening, a spiritual awakening, and certainly a civic awakening. It’s all of that put together.

You are a playwright, a TV writer, and an activist who one of the co-organizers of the DAWN Act. Can you tell us more about it?
The DAWN Act, DAWN stands for Defend Arts Workers Now, and what the DAWN Act does, it expands on the deficiencies of current arts policy proposals like Save Our Stages and RESTART. It is the only comprehensive arts worker relief bill that seeks to put a floor underneath our whole arts economy and arts workers. That is 5.1 million arts workers, 675,000 small business, and $877 billion. Our arts economy generates $265 billion more than transportation, and we are 4.5 percent of our country’s GDP. Our government is leaving 4.5 percent of our GDP on the table. We are more than agriculture and mining put together.

One of the things that I like to say is that, if coal or any other industry that has a better story in our government, is worth $877 billion with 4.5 percent of our GDP, I bet your bottom dollar that every senator or congressperson would be elbowing each other to make sure it had economic relief. DAWN doesn’t create any new government. It authorizes existing infrastructure of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), and Small Business Administration (SBA), $43.85 billion which is five percent of our 877, the same five percent that the top 10 airlines successfully lobbied Congress in the last COVID package, which was $50 billion per their $1 trillion.

The numbers set a precident, and it is taking that $43.85 billion authorized to the institutions that I just named and authorizing them to give direct grants to the operators, employees, and artists of live venues, recording venues, cultural space, and related businesses. We are not leaving out 1099 workers; we are not leaving out the ancillary businesses that support the arts economy like the costume shops, the light shops, the sound shops, instruments shops, etc.

Why did you, Carson, Jenny, and Brooke personally feel the need to write and start this legislation?
Because our people are hurting, and no one is coming to save us. Our government was not working in a way that was effective for our colleagues who were and are actively negotiating with their landlords, who are in life-or-death situations, who are losing their healthcare, and who cannot afford essential things. When our brick-and-mortar businesses closed, we were the first to close, and we will be the last to reopen; it called for us to do the thing that we do. We are not doing this work because we want to, we are doing it because we have to. We are living with the consequences of not having economic relief every day. That is driving us to strive forward every day.

Related Article: Dr. Eric Cervini’s “The Deviant’s War”

Will the DAWN Act affect each state differently?
What we want is to have a grant program that operators, employees, and artists of those venues that I mentioned apply to. The way it will affect each state differently is that there are different populations of workers in each state that are going to need the economic relief. You have a $1 billion arts economy in Wyoming, $30 billion in Illinois, $230 billion in California, $120 billion in New York. Each state has a different economic output. In Colorado, it’s $56 billion. In a place like Denver, you have $16 billion which is the creative economy sales revenue of 2019. That is very different than a place like Nebraska, which has much less. So, it will be different just because of who is applying.

How has the response to the DAWN Act been?
It has been great! We have support in both GOP and democratic offices. Everyone understands the economic story we are telling. It’s not that hard of a spell. It’s like turning on a light bulb over heads of people who maybe know something about this, but didn’t know the extent of what our economic story was in each community. Then for others, they are right on board.

In a place like New York, it is undeniable. New York state is a global leader in the arts. It is not only a national leader; it is a global leader. We met with Senator Bennet’s office, and he knows how important the arts are to Colorado and to Denver. All around the state in Illinois, where I am from, Senators Duckworth and Durbin know exactly how important Chicago is to the arts economy, but also place like Urbana-Champaign, Rockford, Waukegan, Macomb, Charleston. Illinois has a huge arts economy all across the state, and that is everywhere across the nation. Even in places like Nebraska and Oklahoma, they get it.

What is comes down to is that we need them to co-sponsor and introduce it, and that is much different than, “We understand what you are saying; thank you for telling us this today. We are all on board.” That is a different thing than saying, “This is important.” We have to co-sponsor this legislation because this is not only a local issue, this is a national issue. We are big business because we are local business. One thing we want to make sure of is that these leaders not only agree with us, but they are able to put their name on this bill and move this forward. That is the next step. There is a lot of movement happening right now.

Have you encountered or interacted with anyone who absolutely, 100 percent opposes this act?
We may have, but they have not expressed it in those terms. We have definitely met with some offices that are like, “Why is this better than Save Our Stages?” We have some offices say $600; we are also talking about a 100 percent COBRA subsidy and an extension of FPUC, why isn’t it there? Why is $600 at FPUC necessary? We don’t want to dis-incentivize people from going back to work. So, when we meet with that resistance, that is a fundamentally different lens of looking at the world and what that lens is saying. There are a lot of presumptions that come with that understanding of how the nations works, which is if you get $600, and it is dis-incentivizing you to work, then we don’t want you living off of the nanny state. That is kind of what paradigm is.

I have two responses to that. First, it is unacceptable that a nation with multiple billionaires, that $600 a week is unacceptable to you. In my opinion, a billionaire is a hoarder. So, what is the conversation we’re having about economic justice where you think that? We are in a pandemic, which was preventable, the cost of doing nothing now is going to be exponentially more. $43.5 billion is a drop in the bucket compared to doing nothing. We are going through collective trauma as a nation right now, and that I going to last a very long time.

The other thing I will say is, we want to work as soon as possible. We all want to work, but you don’t want us to do something else when we hear we’ll get another job. No, you don’t want us to do anything else. If teachers couldn’t work, you wouldn’t tell teacher to get another job. You need teachers. This is about reframing, rescaling, and retelling the story of who arts workers are, what arts workers are, and where arts workers are.

We multiply jobs. Our growth rate in the arts economy is double that of the nation. When you are saying to us that $600 is dis-incentivizing you, that money is going right back into the economy. It’s not like we are putting that money under our bed. That money is going to grocery stores, landlords, insurance premiums. It is a trickle-up economy. It always has been, and it always will be. We are saying that you need to plant the seed in order for the forest to regrow. It has been burned down by this pandemic. You need to give us the water.

Have you always had a passion for activism?
Yes, for sure. I grew up in a very socially and politically aware home. I started a chapter of students for democratic society when I was in high school. Being engaged isn’t new to me, but being engaged in this particular way is. Also, my work as a playwright and TV writer is very socially and politically engaged. These are the things that I write about. I look at what I am doing now as just an extension of what my work as a writer is. I look at what I do as being a public servant. My writing is one version of that, advocating in this particular way and lobbying is another version of that. Always, my goal is to go where the silence is and to make the invisible visible. That is my job.

Related Article: Peppermint’s New Album Peeks into Her Love Diary

Why do you think arts and culture are always the first programs to be cut and not receive aid? They always seem to be in jeopardy somehow.
There are a lot of reasons to that. One, I think the story the arts has been telling about itself does not work for a nation that does not think that way. The story we tell about ourselves is emotional, intellectual, existential, and humanistic, and we are a nation that largely looks at that conversation as effeminate. It is not considered a masculine industry. Because what we largely do is an emotional, intellectual, and psychological field, it is the very expression of our humanity.  We are treated as extracurricular, and it is ironic because we are one of the economic drivers in our nation.

Like, how did you get through this pandemic? Was it through Netflix? Was it through music? Was it through moving through the world that was designed by architects and living in a house that was designed by designers? We live in a world that is driven by creativity, so this is a real problem.

Look at other industries like coal, which is a particular focus of mine. We understand going into a coal mine and leaving the coal mine, it is exhausting. It is labor. We respect it. We didn’t always respect it. It took the Ludlow Massacre in Colorado, the Battle of Blair Mountain, and headlines week after week of bloody battles for this nation to finally respect coal miners and the work they do, but they were considered the bottom of labor. That changed with the industrial commissions at the turn of the century when Congress studied what was happening in Appalachia in Colorado. Why all these different sectors were striking, why they wanted an eight-hour work day, why poor children were working in textile mills while the rich kids went to school. It took decades of work in order to change that narrative.

It is a similar thing with the arts economy, and we are saying we need to change the narrative of who, what, and where we are. Part of that is talking about our economic story. You’re not hearing us? Great. We will change our language. How’s 4.5 percent of our GDP? Are you listening now? Great. Now let’s make that local. Let’s talk about that in every state. Do you hear what you are about to lose? It is an economic catastrophe. It is life or death.

Our people are negotiating with their landlords because they are about to be evicted. They can’t afford food. Friends of mine who are in the tour of Hamilton, a show that everyone loves, they cannot get work because there are not enough jobs to do something different. Everyone is competing for a smaller amount of jobs.

So, when people say to me that the arts are extracurricular or luxury, it really enrages me because they do not understand. Hamilton, that production that has toured in your city, that was an economic boom for the duration of its span. So, it is about retelling the story and reframing the paradigm of what we do, and it is also changing the lexicon of how we talk about who we are and what we do. This movement is driven by storytellers and theatre people who are natural community organizers. And this is not just about theatre. It’s about music, museum, opera, dance, cultural spaces, technicians, engineers, custodians, admin, everybody.

Can people still add their names to the petition?
Absolutely. They can go to beanartshero.com. They can look at the letter, and they can add their name, or they can go to American Theatre Magazine, the website, the letter is still up there. What we ask for everyone to do, obviously sign the letter, but the most important thing is to contact your senator, representative, and local state officials. Let them know that you support the DAWN Act, you support the extension of FPUC, and you support 100 percent COBRA subsidy.

Be in contact. Every office that we need wants to hear from their constituents. That is across the board. Government works for us, but we have to work for it too. We must stay in engaged. Democracy is useful and a very active sport. The moment that we say what we do doesn’t matter, it is wrong. That is when it escapes us and that is how we end up in the situation we are in right now. This is a bipartisan problem, and there will be a bipartisan solution.

Is there anything else you would like to add before we wrap up?
Just that we would love Senator Bennet’s support for the DAWN Act, and thank you for taking the time let me yell at you [laughs].

For more information on the DAWN Act, visit beanartshero.com. To stay up-to-date with Erlbach, follow him on social media or visit matthew-lee.com.