Performing Arts: The Economic Dilemma

quoted generously from the authors. The subtitle, "The Economic Dilemma," succinctly points to the key to the problem and states that in the performing arts the financial basis for the existence of the performing arts is in a continuing crisis. The authors explore the reasons for the crisis and offer explanations for the status; their conclusions offer to society the economic requirements for existence and continuance, and by so doing, offer to the public a rational basis for public expenditure for support of the live performing arts. The public has yet to realize that live performing arts are part of the division of the general economy where efficiency and production cannot be increased in proportion to the rest of the economy. Production costs, therefore, mount with the general cost of all things but because there can be no efficiency in the production of live performance of the arts as in manufacturing of goods, the revenues from the performing arts cannot and do not keep pace with the rest of the econ-