The notice that landed in the inbox of Elliott Cunningham, the managing director of New Hampshire’s oldest playhouse, provided little explanation. But it made clear that the federal grant it had been awarded for a traveling production about a 12-year-old boy exploring backyard trails was no longer available.
He expects a similar message from state funding sources to come next.
Support for New Hampshire’s arts council is at risk as legislators finalize a two-year state budget this week. After one lawmaker suggested eliminating the organization, another countered with a proposal that the council should instead receive $1.
The proposed cuts looked similar to President Trump’s move to eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts. In her inaugural address in January, Gov. Kelly Ayotte, a Republican, announced the formation of the Commission on Government Efficiency, a state version of the Department of Government Efficiency.
The message has been clear: Reduce the size of government and trim budgets.
To many state legislators, shrinking revenue means tough decisions. To arts administrators, the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts is essential to sustaining the theaters, museums and festivals that help give the “Live free or die” state its character.
Last fiscal year the arts council gave the New London Barn Playhouse, where Mr. Cunningham works, a $21,250 grant to upgrade its sound system. The council also helped pay for a wheelchair-accessible lift backstage at the Capitol Center for the Arts in Concord, for broadband upgrades at the New England Ski Museum in Franconia and for new floors at a dance studio in Lebanon.
“There are a million places in this country that have a million strip malls that all look exactly the same,” said Sal Prizio, the executive director of the Capitol Center for the Arts, which is blocks away from the State House. “You’re killing the things that make New Hampshire, New Hampshire.”
Ms. Ayotte had proposed a $16 billion two-year budget that included nearly $1 million annually for the arts council, which received $1.4 million from the state last fiscal year. But some legislators consider that frivolous spending when New Hampshire — which has no income tax or sales tax — is facing a revenue shortfall because of tax repeals and the end of federal assistance from the coronavirus pandemic.
“We got to put money somewhere, and I’m probably going to help the developmentally disabled rather than the arts,” said State Senator Tim Lang, a Republican who proposed the $1 budget for the arts council. “A lot of our decisions were decisions like that or really lousy decisions that had to get made.”
After House Republicans contested Ms. Ayotte’s revenue estimates, they proposed slashing $643 million in spending. Their initial cuts included eliminating the state arts council, reducing Medicaid reimbursement rates and trimming funding for the state university system.
When the budget proceeded to the Senate, Mr. Lang moved to symbolically restore the council, keeping it part of state statute but forcing it to operate as a volunteer entity dependent on donations. His inbox was soon flooded with critiques from residents.
“You think of your small-town-gazebo, Saturday-night-concert kind of thing,” Mr. Lang said. “Without the council of the arts, those programs would likely go away.”
After the blowback, Mr. Lang, a retired police officer who is now an information technology director and a yoga instructor, submitted the current proposal to give the arts council $150,000 annually. He also developed a program that would offer businesses a 50 percent tax credit for donations of up to $700,000 in support of the council, and told legislators that two donors were already lined up.
That setup would prevent the state from accepting federal grants that require a dollar-to-dollar match from state funds, like those from the National Endowment for the Arts; last fiscal year the council received nearly $1 million in federal funding.
Since 1965, when President Lyndon B. Johnson established the National Endowment for the Arts, all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and five territories have had a local offshoot. Funding trickles down from the federal government to these agencies, which then distribute grants to local organizations.
While many legislatures are weighing budget cuts, it is unusual for one to strip arts funding to the degree that New Hampshire’s proposal does, according to Kelly Barsdate, an executive adviser to local councils in her role with the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies.
If New Hampshire’s funding drops to $150,000, it would have the smallest arts agency in the country, a decimated division dependent largely on donations and volunteers.
“This is not normal,” Ms. Barsdate said.
The arts council has seven staff members and distributed more than $1.5 million in grants across the state’s 10 counties last fiscal year. Ms. Barsdate said the awards provided a return on investment by encouraging tourism, sustaining local economies and increasing access to education.
Republicans dominated the state races in New Hampshire last year, picking up dozens of seats in the House and widening their majority in the Senate. The state has the country’s largest elected Legislature, with 400 representatives and 24 senators — who are each paid $100 a year — representing about 1.4 million people.
The House and Senate plan to vote on their budget proposal on Thursday before it heads to the governor’s desk. Ms. Ayotte, who did not respond to a request for comment, has said she supports the arts but she can veto only the entire budget, not specific provisions.
Ginnie Lupi, who led the arts council from 2014 to 2023, said that reducing the organization’s state funding would be a detrimental blow.
“You’re left with a shell,” she said. “It’s a horrible situation to be in.”
Last fiscal year, the arts council’s largest grant — a $29,000 award for a biennial professional development conference — went to Arts Alive, a nonprofit that promotes access to the arts in the rural Monadnock Region.
The organization has had to look elsewhere for funding this year. It faces the prospect of zero support from the state, and Jessica Iris, its executive director, said the N.E.A. withdrew a $25,000 grant toward conceptual designs for a new arts center in Keene, a city of 23,000 people.
The Keene City Council often gives a small amount to Arts Alive, usually $500 a year. Last week, it agreed to allocate $10,000.
Michaela Towfighi is a Times arts and culture reporter and a member of the 2025-26 Times Fellowship class, a program for early career journalists.
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