Harvard's ART Wins $750,000

In one of two forthcoming donations, the Harvard-affiliated American Repertory Theater (ART) has received a conditional $750,000 grant from a national fund.

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), a federally financed program, announced yesterday in Washington that it has awarded $22 million in "Challenge Grants"--money awarded only when the recipient garners triple the amount in new, private funds--to 50 artistic institutions across the country.

Harvard's ART was granted the largest conditional award of any theater company nationwide, but will have to raise $2.25 million in matching contributions over the next three years to secure the federal money.

In a separate, unannounced development, NEA President Frank Hodsoll is expected to unveil a new theater-related initiative next Tuesday which would substantially benefit the ART, an endowment spokesman said yesterday.

"I can't really say anything about it," said ART General Manager Richard Orchard, "but I can tell you it will be a major grant." Orchard said the new grant will be larger than the $750,000 already committed by the NEA, but that it will be of a different nature.

"It will be more involved with people and may have more tangible benefits for Harvard undergraduates," he said.

No other information about the Tuesday press conference was available yesterday. Both NEA and ART officials were markedly excited about the hush-hush event, which they termed the country's most important theater-linked development of the year.

The grants, including a $1 million deficit-reducing award from a New York-based art fund in late June, come during a period of fundraising success for the Brattle St. theater which Harvard lured from Yale University in 1979.

The professional drama company offers substantial theatrical opportunities to Harvard students, receiving about 10 percent of its $3 million annual budget from Harvard. The ART is formally affiliated with the University.

Although it has operated with a deficit in past years, the new grants should help to cast the theater into the black. It has planned two of its most ambitious and expensive performances for the coming year, including a complicated musical and a play with a large cast this spring, according to Orchard.

"We have evolved and have had a positive evolution. I guess it is a given that we would improve, and we are pleased with recent developments," he said.

A statement released by the NEA yesterday called the ART "excellent" and said the criteria for receiving the conditional grants, which it characterized as very difficult to meet, are primarily artistic achievements.

But it stated that ability to utilize funds productively, to reach out to an audience and to plan an active future were also considered in selecting the ART and other recipients. Winners were selected by three separate panels of peer judges and ultimately approved by the NEA leadership.

Boston's Museum of Fine Arts received the maximum Challenge Grant of $1 million and three other local art institutions were awarded smaller amounts. The Boston-Cambridge area received more awards than any other single area except New York City.