Delaware Liberal

Terminally Ill Arts Orgs Get Lingering Death Prolonged By Dumb Rich Patron

The NJ Reports:

Five of Delaware’s largest arts organizations have launched a campaign to raise $12 million in three years, money they say will secure their immediate future.

The Delaware Art Museum, Delaware Symphony, Delaware Theatre Company, Opera Delaware and The Grand already have their first pledges: Tatiana Brandt Copeland and Gerret van S. Copeland of Wilmington each has promised $1 million to the campaign, called Arts for Delaware’s Future.

Representatives of the Wilmington nonprofit groups came together in secret early last year at Tatiana Copeland’s invitation. Copeland, an accountant, is a member of several arts boards and had become alarmed by the financial states of the organizations she most treasures.

Arts for Delaware’s Future (AFDF) will divide among its organizations the money it raises. The exact distribution hasn’t yet been established, but members said it likely would be based on a combination of need, urgency and budget size.

The thing is, nobody needs Opera, and the people who kind of like Opera can go to NY or Paris to get good Opera. There is no reason for Delaware to have an Opera company. None.

Regional Opera companies and Symphonies are dead. Let them die already. Pull the plug.

The only way theaters can avoid the same fate is to generate some earned income. If they can’t get paying customers interested in what they are doing then they need to hang it up.

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