Theater: Are Artists Godless Perverts?

In the battle over public funding, opponents seem to be winning

At the end of Indecent Materials, a pair of one-act plays linking homophobia to right-wing criticism of the National Endowment for the Arts, an actor from North Carolina steps out of character to vow that this year his state will unseat the NEA's foremost critic, Senator Jesse Helms. Despite that bravado, many cultural leaders fear that what started out as a skirmish against would- be censors is turning into an unwinnable war. After years of debate about whether public funding for the arts was growing fast enough, cultural institutions now worry whether the NEA will survive at all, at least on...

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