General News: Pick for NEA Chief Has Local TIes
May 14, 2009
President Obama’s pick to become the next chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts is Rocco Landesman, a part-time resident of Cornwall-on-Hudson who could make a major impact on the arts nationwide.
Landesman is not often recognized in the village, where he prefers to keep a low profile, but on Broadway he’s a giant. He has produced Tony-winning productions like “Angels in America” and “The Producers,” and his company owns five theaters in midtown.
A graduate of the Yale School of Drama, the 62-year-old Landesman is known for his intellect. When the White House made the announcement of Landesman’s nomination, it noted his service on numerous arts board and his involvement in the debate about relationship between commercial and not-for-profit theatres. Playwright Tony Kusher was more forthcoming in his comment to The New York Times, saying the nomination is “potentially the best news the arts community in the United States has had since the birth of Walt Whitman.”
Landesman gave a presentation to students at the Storm King School in Cornwall-on-Hudson a year ago, but people who know him say that he comes to the village to relax and get away from it all.
He’ll be even busier if Congress approves his appointment as chairman of the NEA, which oversees grant programs for artists and arts organization across the United States. The organization suffered when its budget was cut to exert political pressure in the 1990s. It has been re-gaining its earlier prominence and Landesman will surely be called on to fulfill the endowment’s goal of supporting excellence in the arts while bringing art to all Americans and providing leadership in arts education.
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