Utah arts groups just saw thousands in funding pulled by the feds. Here’s what was cut.

A play for Utah students about coping with post-pandemic life. Free ballet performances for children with autism and their families. Teaching teens to produce, direct and shoot their own short films. And restaging the opera “Madame Butterfly” for modern audiences.

Those are some of projects that Utah arts organizations had secured grant money for under the National Endowment for the Arts — grants that the federal agency rescinded on Friday.

Nationwide, hundreds of arts groups received emails Friday, telling them that their grants would either be terminated or withdrawn. The notices arrived shortly after President Donald Trump proposed entirely eliminating the National Endowment for the Arts as part of his plan for next year’s federal budget.

Larissa Trout, executive director of the Salt Lake City media education nonprofit Spy Hop, said she was “shocked” by the email withdrawing a $25,000 grant for its “PitchNic” filmmaking program, “but also I saw it coming. I knew it was going to happen. … The word was out.”

Plan-B Theatre‘s artistic director, Jerry Rapier, said its touring school program — which saw a $25,000 grant terminated — has been a staple for more than a decade, serving about 100 campuses statewide each school year.

Angella Vernon, the president of nonprofit Utah Metropolitan Ballet, said in an email Monday that the ballet company was “deeply disappointed” to lose a $10,000 grant to support the troupe’s free performances for families affected by autism.

“We invested significant time and effort into the application process, and upon receiving the initial recommendation, moved forward with planning and implementation of the proposed project,” Vernon wrote. Losing the grant, she said, “presents a substantial challenge.”

Utah Symphony | Utah Opera also learned Friday that a $20,000 grant to support Utah Opera‘s current production of Puccini’s “Madame Butterfly,” which confronts the racism and colonial stereotypes of Puccini’s original, had been withdrawn.

Losing the grant “is disappointing and makes our budget more challenging this year,” Steve Brosvik, USUO’s president and CEO, said in a statement Monday.

But he noted it will not affect the continued run ”of this vibrant and extraordinary production.“ It premiered Saturday at Salt Lake City’s Capitol Theatre. More performances are scheduled for Wednesday, Friday and Sunday.

Separately, Mundi Project, which provides piano classes to some 300 Utah students, said their $10,000 grant had also been withdrawn. The amount represents “a substantial portion of our programming funds,” said Trish Hull, board chair.

“Its absence will be felt in our planning and programming for the year ahead,” Hull said in a statement. The group will search for “alternative sources of support to ensure this important work moves forward.”

Why was the funding cut?

In the cancellation emails, the National Endowment for the Arts specified that it was ending grants that don’t align with Trump’s policies.

Instead, it listed the types of projects that it will prioritize, including those that foster skilled trade jobs; elevate historically Black colleges and universities and Hispanic-serving institutions; support Tribal communities, the military and veterans; celebrate the 250th anniversary of American independence, and more.

Rapier said he had concerns about those new priorities. “For an agency whose mandate is to support arts across the country, the reprioritization does not sound like what the mandate would dictate,” Rapier said.

Besides the agency’s name and an opening reference to “artistic heritage,” Rapier said the stated priorities give “no mention of actual art or artists.”

Trout said that the mention that projects should “foster skilled trade jobs” could apply to PitchNic — “filmmaking is certainly a trade,” she said — but she wasn’t sure that would be enough to appeal the withdrawal. Groups that received the email have seven days to appeal, but Trout said “the chances of an appeal are really slim for us.”

Three Utah organizations whose grants were announced in January but not finalized — the Salt Lake City Arts Council, the Park City Summit County Arts Council and Ogden Contemporary Arts — said Monday that they did not receive withdrawal notices Friday.

Each group said their activities – respectively, the Living Traditions Festival in downtown Salt Lake City on May 16-18, the Latino Arts Festival in Park City on June 13-15, and Ogden Contemporary Arts’ artist-in-residence program — would go on, with or without NEA support.

What do the cuts mean?

Spy Hop, Utah Opera, Utah Metropolitan Ballet and Mundi Project also learned in January they would be getting NEA grants. Because those grants weren’t finalized, the money won’t be coming.

Rapier’s Plan-B got its grant in an earlier cycle, and its contract with NEA ran from last July to this June. NEA rules allow arts groups to spend the money for their projects, which the government then reimburses up to the amount awarded.

Because Plan-B already spent their allotted money and had been reimbursed, Rapier said, the troupe doesn’t have to pay the government back.

For Spy Hop’s teen filmmaking program, this year’s students are already in pre-production and will start shooting over the summer, aiming for screenings in November.

Without the federal support, Trout said, “what we’re going to do is continue to do what we always do, which is go find funding to support the programs that we offer to the community. We just look elsewhere. … We have many funders who are very invested in the success of PitchNic.”

A grant from the NEA has value beyond the dollar figure, Trout said. “There are many funders who look for matches, and they’re also looking for the credibility, the validity of a program,” Trout said. “To say that you have NEA support, there is a stamp of approval, a vetting process.”

Trout said she’s concerned with “what will come in the next several years, and how the larger funding community will have to absorb a greater need from the arts community in order to sustain its programming.”

Maintaining a community’s arts and culture — “something that makes our communities vibrant and have meaning and help us make sense of the world” — is, Trout said, a “responsibility [that’s] a big one to drop on the private sector.”

NEA funding has been a political target for decades, but Trout said this move feels more dire.

“It’s not even a canary in a coal mine anymore — we’re in the coal mine,” Trout said. “It’s very much chipping away at the foundation of our humanity, in a way that’s very unsettling and scary. Yet I also know the arts have always been scrappy and creative and robust, and we’re not going to go anywhere.”