EPISODE · Jun 1, 2023 · 1H 9M
Drag Queens and Small Town USA: Orange County, VA (pop. 37,188)
from Small Town Big Arts · host Media Squatch
Recenlty I opened my local paper in Lynchburg,VA and saw the following headline: "Orange County Board yanks arts center funding over drag design class." This struck a chord for many reasons. For those of us in the arts, there are a number of ways that cultural insitution's programming have fallen into an extreme right wing political playbook and this fit the mold. It also struck me because I serve on the Virginians for the Arts board of directors with the Arts Center in Orange's President, Ed Harvey. I reached out to Ed and asked if he and his Executive Director, Anna Pillow would be willing to discuss their recent collision with the Orange County Board of Supervisors. They were brave enough to say yes. On this episode we hope their insight will help many of those delivering the arts in small town American at a moment when trying to expand horizons and reach new audiences might collide with a segment of the community that wants to coin such actions as political. When the line between culture and politics is blurred, what is one to do?
What this episode covers
Recenlty I opened my local paper in Lynchburg,VA and saw the following headline: "Orange County Board yanks arts center funding over drag design class." This struck a chord for many reasons. For those of us in the arts, there are a number of ways that cultural insitution's programming have fallen into an extreme right wing political playbook and this fit the mold. It also struck me because I serve on the Virginians for the Arts board of directors with the Arts Center in Orange's President, Ed Harvey. I reached out to Ed and asked if he and his Executive Director, Anna Pillow would be willing to discuss their recent collision with the Orange County Board of Supervisors. They were brave enough to say yes. On this episode we hope their insight will help many of those delivering the arts in small town American at a moment when trying to expand horizons and reach new audiences might collide with a segment of the community that wants to coin such actions as political. When the line between culture and politics is blurred, what is one to do?
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Drag Queens and Small Town USA: Orange County, VA (pop. 37,188)
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