The Chicago Latino Theater Alliance each fall stages a theater festival during Latino Heritage Month.
The organizers planned this year on a $20,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), the most prominent federal arts funder. The grant was submitted and approved, but with a rash of new guidelines coming from the Trump administration around arts funding — including a prohibition on using federal monies for programs supporting “diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) that violate any applicable federal anti-discrimination laws” — it’s unclear whether or not the funds promised will actually be delivered.
“Existence is resistance,” said Jorge Valdivia, executive director of the Alliance. “That is what this is feeling like now, and it should not feel that way.”
Tarah Ortiz Durnbaugh, the executive director of the Hyde Park School of Dance, is worried, too, even though the dance school’s grant for 2025 also has received preliminary approval of moneys to to fund free dance classes for South Side seniors and refugees to the city.
Durnbaugh chooses her words carefully, her thoughts on the matter interrupted with pregnant pauses. “There is not a lot of confidence that that money will come through … .”
There’s been a lot of hesitancy, uncertainty — even outright fear — among many in the Chicago performing arts community, after the NEA announced a raft of new rules. Among them: doing away with $10,000 Challenge America grants for small arts organizations tailored to benefit underserved communities.
Any organization that’s applied for a Challenge America grant for 2026 must now reapply for a more general grant that doesn’t emphasize the arts-deprived component, the NEA said in its recent announcement. The agency goes further, saying, “the NEA continues to encourage projects that celebrate the nation’s rich artistic heritage and creativity by honoring the semiquincentennial of the United States of America.” The effort is part of the America250 commission, an FAQ says, designed to promote the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
According to new guidelines, three other areas of priority are: projects that originate in Historically Black Colleges and Universities; efforts that support health and well-being of communities; and “technology-centered creative practices,” including work that explores artificial intelligence.
A spokeswoman for the NEA said in an email this week to the Sun-Times that the grant application changes are simply about streamlining at the agency.
“This change to Challenge America will allow the NEA to more efficiently process grant applications this year. Under Grants for Arts Projects, the NEA will continue to support excellent arts projects of all kinds, including those serving rural, urban, suburban and tribal communities of all sizes, and those that engage with individuals whose opportunities to experience and participate in the arts are limited,” said the spokeswoman, Elizabeth Auclair.
Still, in several cases, the new compliance requirements demand that theaters no longer do the specific work they were founded to do.
Chicago’s About Face Theatre, which stages LGBTQ stories, received a 2025 grant to support a free theater festival. Executive director Megan Carney is unsure whether or not this grant will be delivered. But she is sure About Face will not apply for funding again next year. The new guidelines state applicants will be out of compliance if they use funds to “promote gender ideology.”
“We cannot comply,” said Carney. “We’re not going to be able to affirmatively say we will comply with these orders because of our mission alone. Our mission is to advance LGBTQ-plus equity through community building, education and performance.”
Carney said the requirements would undo the essence of everything About Face stands for.
Arts organizations in Illinois have received preliminary approval for a total of about $1.9 million in 2025 NEA grants, including $150,000 in Challenge America money. In 2024, the single largest NEA grant in Illinois — about $1.1 million — went to the Illinois Arts Council, which helps support arts activities statewide.
That state arts council issued a brief statement in response to questions about changes at the NEA: “We are still in the process of understanding updates with the NEA and will keep our constituents apprised as we learn more.”
Durnbaugh said fears about the Trump administration’s priorities go beyond whether promised grant money might not arrive. Some of the conversations she said she’s observed in “non-profit, arts-heavy” social media circles concern a reluctance to even apply for money — “not because of an unlikelihood of getting the funding but because of disclosing that much about your organization to the government at this time.”
But some in the local arts scene have a more wait-and-see attitude.
“It does feel like there is a lot of chaos, trying to get people riled up, trying to scare people, trying to distract people. As an arts leader, the best thing you can do is keep your feet planted on the ground and keep your eyes focused on what you’re doing,” said Kia Smith, founder and director of vision and strategy for South Chicago Dance Theatre, a professional company that is awaiting a $15,000 NEA grant for 2025.
Tyrone Phillips, founding artistic director of Definition Theatre, who is currently co-producing “Fat Ham” with the Goodman Theatre supported by a $25,000 NEA grant, said his group has no plans to stop applying for federal funding.
“There’s a responsibility on both sides,” said Phillips. “The government and ourselves should be in conversation about what we are doing. We are a service organization. At the end of the day, we serve people. So we can’t lose. We have to double, if not triple down.”
Phillips said Definition serves the community through theater and feels the government should support that work, because it’s a public service. He does however, make one very specific distinction: “There should never be government control of the art. We’re talking about support.”