Evanston’s Next Theatre Company has received a $25,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts as part of the federal economic stimulus recovery package.
Evanston’s Next Theatre Company has received a $25,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts as part of the federal economic stimulus recovery package.
Jason Southerland, artistic director at Next, say the grant will help make up for declining support from the state and city.
Combined with several foundation grants, he said, it will let the group avoid laying off a current staff person and also hire a development director this winter.
Southerland says Next serves about 10,000 people a year, including 1,500 subscribers, on a total budget of just over $700,000.
He says the Next audience has grown 300 percent in the last seven years and that about 45 percent of the theater-goers patronize an Evanston restaurant before or after performances.
The arts stimulus program totaled $50 million nationwide and has made grants to 631 arts organizations — of an estimated 100,000 non-profit arts groups in the country.
Southerland says experts extimate about 10 percent of those groups may close this year because of the recession, causing a loss of 260,000 jobs.
The Next Theatre Company is located in the Noyes Cultural Arts Center at 927 Noyes St.