Commitment is the key to success

Dennis Anderson

President, Mission Valley Friends of the Arts

Commitment means a whole-hearted dedication to a specific goal. One reason the arts get less attention these days is that we're conditioned as an Instant society. We want things now and we want them perfect.

In the early 1900s, the celebrated Barrymore family was famous for commitment to the theatre. Their plays would typically run for hundreds or even thousands of performances. The Barrymores arrived early every night to work parts of the script that needed attention, right up to the final curtain. A hundred years later, at this year's Tony Awards, Billy Crystal, whose one-man show has run on Broadway for over a year, commented that, with only a week to go, his partner was still rewriting to make the show better. Commitment is the difference between being good and being good enough.

The importance of commitment was evident at the recent PHS graduation. The class of 2005 shared one of the highest dollar amounts of scholarships in recent memory. While it's true that many scholarships are awarded on academic merit, colleges are expanding admissions criteria to other areas. In addition to good grades, many universities now demand credits in community service, organized sports and the arts; some insist on at least three years of each.

It's also significant that the Class of 2005 represented a high percentage of student participants in art, music, and theatre programs, especially extracurricular, throughout their primary education careers. Many of these are afforded at no cost to school districts, such as private music and dance lessons or community and children's theatre.

Ask members of the "Lewis & Clark and the Little People" musical about commitment. They'll list the hours of practice they dedicated. Not to mention miles of commuting to late-night rehearsals, countless hours of sweeping stairs, scrubbing bathrooms, stitching costumes and promotional legwork. (The only thing greater than this commitment was the gallons of adrenaline produced by the company in performance!)

The National Endowment for the Arts committed grant funding to the above mentioned project, as it seeks to broaden its arts support in general. According to NEA Chairman Dana Gioia, "Last year the agency set the goal of reaching every community in the United States with at least one direct NEA grant (and) is proud to report that in FY 2004 the agency awarded grants in 433 of 435 Congressional districts."

The organization is committed to reaching every community by FY 2006. Says Gioia, "The NEA's mission is to enrich the civic life of the nation by making the arts and arts education truly available throughout the U.S."

The excuse that arts programs are unavailable, inaccessible or elitist is not a valid one. Perhaps it's only a matter of how we define commitment.

June Fun Fact: A high percentage of this year's graduates list art, music or theatre as their intended college major or minor. Way to go, Class of '05!