Multiple Northwest Philadelphia arts organizations, among hundreds of other groups nationwide, lost promised grants from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) on May 2 in what’s being called the “Friday night massacre.” 

Just hours after President Donald Trump released his budget proposal calling for the elimination of the NEA, many arts organizations received an official email from a government address informing them that their grants were terminated. Among the numerous groups affected in Philadelphia, the Quintessence Theatre Group in Mt. Airy and the Circadium School of Contemporary Circus in Mt. Airy were hit by the cuts. 

Meanwhile, the Lantern Theater Company in Center City — which also holds events in Northwest Philadelphia and plans to open a Mt. Airy location in 2026 — managed to get its funding before the mass cuts. However, the Lantern team suspects the usual all-but-expected NEA funding for next year will not be coming.

Now, these local institutions are rushing to secure alternate funding and speaking up about the broader implications of these cuts.

Applying for grants

It was around 9 p.m. when Alex Burns, artistic director at Quintessence Theatre Group, received a “very creepy” email informing him that the organization’s NEA grant was withdrawn. According to a verbal summary from Burns in an interview with the Local, the email said its grant was “not in line with the new priorities of the NEA and the president.”

Over a year prior to receiving this email, on Feb. 28, 2024, Burns and the rest of the team at Quintessence submitted its NEA grant proposal.

“It’s quite an intense document that you need to create, demonstrating both the impact of the artmaking in terms of how you’re advancing your own excellence as artists and also articulating the impact that it will have on your community,” Burns said. “You have to lay out a full budget, where you think you’re going to get your additional funding to make it all happen, and clarify who a number of the collaborators and key artists are going to be. Then you also have to submit work samples that clarify the quality of the artists involved.”

Shana Kennedy, Circadium’s executive director, who received a similar email that infamous Friday night, also submitted the proposal for the school’s NEA grant in February 2024. Kennedy even hired a grant writer to assist in the application process.

In November 2024, both Quintessence and Circadium received word they were approved for NEA funding — $25,000 for Quintessence and $15,000 for Circadium.

Allocating the money

Unlike many other grant programs, the NEA grant system typically works through reimbursement. The funds are initially promised, giving arts organizations the go-ahead to spend money and later be reimbursed. 

Quintessence aimed to use the money for a new performance entitled “Fire!!” This piece is a stage adaptation of Wallace Thurman’s 1920s magazine, the first journal entirely written and edited by Black people in the United States. Quintessence is turning the magazine’s stories, essays, and poems into its premiere performance this fall for the company’s 16th season.

Circadium allocated its grant for the end-of-season 2025 production, “The Garden of Earthly Delights,” on May 30 and 31. This multidisciplinary program highlights the parts of our lives we keep private and those we show the world through circus skills and tricks. The money was going to be given to the artists and staff producing the show.

When Kennedy received word that Circadium’s grant was revoked, she was dismayed, but not surprised. She submitted receipts to be reimbursed in early April, but received an email saying the grant was not finalized.

“I was in a tizzy,” Kennedy said. “I started calling other arts organizations to say, ‘Have you gotten your grant money in?’ And everyone said, ‘No, we haven’t.’ By the end of April, when this sort of came to a head, the writing was on the wall. This grant was going to be terminated.”

Looking for other funding

Despite the warning signs, Kennedy said the confirmation that the grant was withdrawn caused her to feel “terrified” and “panicked.”

“Many [other arts organizations] are larger than us, so they have ways of moving money from one place to another or calling in a major donor to handle something, and we just don’t have those options,” Kennedy said. “Who am I not going to pay? Which bills are going to get pushed off? … If we don’t provide the show, does that mean we’re going to be running afoul of our accreditation rules?”

Although his organization lost a grant, Burns said Quintessence will move forward with the production of “Fire!!” thanks to funding from several individual donors and the William Penn Foundation. However, the budget will have to be “rethought and restructured.”

As for Circadium, Kennedy turned to fundraising. She started an online campaign on the fundraising software Zeffy and, within 48 hours, enough money was raised to produce the show. This was a positive development in a “very stressful few days.”

“We had people from all over the country who donated all ranges of money, from $5 up to thousands of dollars,” Kennedy said. “I’m feeling tremendous gratitude and appreciation for the larger community that we have and the number of people that want to support our little school.”

Grants in limbo

While Quintessence and Circadium are exploring alternative funding routes, the Lantern Theater Company “lucked out,” according to executive director Stacy Maria Dutton.

Lantern received an NEA grant through the Shakespeare in American Communities program, run in partnership with the nonprofit Arts Midwest. The funding was allocated to support the company’s work in classrooms and bring students to matinee performances of “American Moor” in November and December 2024. Lantern submitted its request for reimbursement right away and received it in January. 

According to Dutton, Lantern has received this type of grant nearly every year for the past 15 years. However, today, she is not hopeful. 

“We are almost certainly going to be affected going forward,” Dutton said. “Normally, we receive notification in April for the upcoming school year and season. I think we’ve received two emails about the grant process for the 2025-26 school year basically saying it’s in limbo. That’s $25,000 we almost count on for sure. I think we’re all trying to be very realistic that’s not going to happen for next year.”

Quintessence sits in a similar situation. In addition to the company’s revoked grant, Burns said the organization also has a $25,000 pending Shakespeare in American Communities grant.

“We’re just presuming, because we haven’t even heard back, that is not going to happen,” he said.

Other federal cuts

The NEA cuts for arts groups are far from the only federal funding cuts from the Trump administration impacting local organizations. In April, the Local reported on a $750,000 Institute of Museum and Library Sciences (IMLS) grant to Woodmere that was revoked. In similar fashion, William Valerio, the museum’s director and CEO, received word of the termination through a late night email.

The Philadelphia Alliance to Restore School Librarians (PARSL), a small volunteer-run organization working to get more school librarians in Philadelphia city schools, received a competitive IMLS grant for just under $150,000 in July 2024. However, on April 14, PARSL was informed that the grant was canceled.

Deb Kachel, a core team member of PARSL, said she was preparing for the funding cuts as soon as the Trump administration formed the Department of Governmental Efficiency (DOGE). However, she was still disappointed by the news.

“I was hoping that because IMLS is a quasi-governmental agency, it would slip past the eyes of DOGE, but it did not,” Kachel said. “We were all, of course, devastated to hear that our grant was captured in the net of all of the IMLS projects that are being canceled.”

According to Kachel, the School District of Philadelphia has pledged to fulfill the core pieces of PARSL’s grant proposal despite the lack of federal money. This will include an initiative dedicated to enhancing education and certification programs for school librarians and a five-year strategic plan to incrementally add school librarians to the district and establish which school buildings could support a library space. 

Reactions to the cuts

Although local organizations are finding ways to continue their work despite losing federal grants, their members are concerned about the consequences of cutting funding for the arts. Burns said the hundreds of withdrawn grants around the country suggest the Trump administration did not display any “integrity” in investigating the funded projects in an “ignorant and silly” gesture.

“To say that the artists that received these grants were not doing so in a spirit that values American culture or is part of necessary artmaking for the people that are the citizens of this country, is frankly insulting and embarrassing for the current administration,” Burns said. “I think the intent is to be threatening and scary to artists who have received the support. To take this away in this way is creating a ‘Big Brother’ feeling of being censored or watched. It’s an attempt to limit the artist's vision for what artmaking should be happening in America today, and that, to me, is really disgusting.”

According to Burns, Philadelphia has extremely low per capita investment in arts and culture compared to other major American cities. Therefore, NEA support is vital to many arts organizations in the city. Burns said relying on the donations of individual philanthropists and foundations is “not a sustainable model.”

Kennedy feels similarly that NEA funding played an important role in the community.

“The NEA was already a small agency, but it had a big impact,” Kennedy said. “It’s given a lot of visibility and legitimacy to small arts organizations all over the country. It’s in danger of entirely collapsing and that will be terrible on so many levels. It’s a sad state of affairs that our national government is devaluing arts and culture so much.”

If you are part of an organization in Northwest Philadelphia or Southeast Montgomery County whose federal funding has been cut, or, on the other hand, if your organization’s grants will not be affected, please contact editor@chestnuthilllocal.com. Maggie Dougherty can be reached at margaret@chestnuthilllocal.com.