What will a new president do for the arts?

That's the question asked by British journalist Matt Wolf in The Times today. Interviewing a range of arts industry types, and playwrights such as Tony Kushner and Edward Albee, Wolf looks at everything from McCain's position on arts funding, to Obama's detailed arts policy:

'Early on in his campaign, he convened a 33-strong National Arts Policy Committee, including the novelist Michael Chabon and the founder of the American Film Institute, George Stevens Jr. The team then issued a two-page document laying out Obama's vision for the arts. There's much talk of arts education, “to create complete human beings capable of leading successful and productive lives in a free society”. Obama wants an “artist corps” to go into schools and ginger up disadvantaged schoolchildren, and there's talk of more money for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA).'

The feature also looks at some of the possible impacts of the global economic crisis, drawing parallels with the arts during the last great depression:

'More seriously, Lahr predicts hard times on Broadway. “In times of fear, people don't want to think, so you tend to get musicals, spectacle, documentary. It tends to lower the literary quality of work. And producers aren't going to take risks with unknown products.” Similarly, Goodridge sees poor fare at the cinema. “Film is the cheapest form of entertainment and it has ridden out recessions repeatedly, but Hollywood as a corporate society has suffered terribly over the past year; there have been massive lay-offs.” And that is going to have an effect. “Mamma Mia! is about as mindless as you can get in terms of escapist entertainment, and look how successful that's been. Whereas the failure of the Iraq war films has just made the studios more keenly aware that they just have to produce blockbusters.”'

It's an interesting read - see the full article here.