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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowNot-for-profit Storytelling Arts of Indiana has canceled its long-running fall festival this year because it anticipates large cuts in city and state grant funding, it announced today.
What would have been the 22nd annual Hoosier Storytelling Festival was planned for Sept. 24-26 in Military Park in Indianapolis. The event typically draws 4,000 attendees, including 3,000 or more schoolchildren for performances by locally and nationally known storytellers.
“We had a choice,” Executive Director Ellen Munds said. “We could do the festival and really not do very much the rest of the year, or we could do the whole season, and have more of a presence.”
Munds said Storytelling Arts made its decision in January after sizing up pending budget cuts at the Arts Council of Indianapolis and Indiana Arts Commission.
The organization received a combined $40,000 in city and state grants last year. Half of that funding went toward the festival, which cost $65,000 to stage and lost $5,000.
“We’ve been able to eat that,” Munds said of the festival’s loss. “This next year, I don’t think we could. We want Storytelling Arts to survive.”
The Arts Council of Indianapolis advised grantees to plan for a 20-percent reduction in grants, which are awarded in May. The Indiana Arts Commission’s budget is not yet settled, but could be trimmed by 8 percent, Munds said.
Already a small organization, Storytelling Arts has forgone replacing a part-time assistant and bookkeeper, making Munds its sole employee. The group’s annual budget will shrink from $190,000 to about $119,000 on July 1, she said.
Storytelling Arts will try to incorporate popular elements from the festival into its 17-event season, which starts Aug. 16 at the Indiana State Fair and runs through the first weekend in May.
The kickoff will be a new “Liar’s Contest” at the state fair. The contest will be open to anyone who wants to take a turn at telling tall tales.
Scary Stories, a festival favorite, is planned for Oct. 9-10.
Storytelling Arts will hold four separate family events, including a show by “teller of tall tales” Bil Lepp on Dec. 4 at the Indiana Historical Society.
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