Published in Philanthropy News Digest, 31 October 2007, this is an excellent review by Daniel Matz, the Foundation Center, of the book edited by Robert A. Schanke, ‘Angels in the American Theater: Patron, Patronage, and Philanthropy’, 2007, Southern Illinois University Press. Matz finds the book an excellent and readable introduction to the history of arts patronage in the USA:
‘The essays…are wide-ranging and explore different aspects of both the history of the performing arts in the United States as well as how the individuals and institutions involved in that evolution saw their roles in building and sustaining the arts. If there is a theme to the collection it is that arts funding in general and support for the performing arts specifically has gone from being an indulgence of the wealthy to the institutionalized practice of an industry built around the creation and distribution of non- and for-profit theater.‘
However, he finds that 'Conspicuously absent from this otherwise meaty volume is any sustained look at the role of government in funding the performing arts — so much so, in fact, that the reader might think that no such funding exists. [The editor] Schanke himself gives little credit to government for promoting the arts, and suggests that we should expect more of the same in the present climate... But, of course, public patronage of the arts in the United States is quite substantial and has its own history (with many highs and lows). But for Schanke, enough has already been written on the National Endowment for the Arts, and while there are surely "angels" in the public sector, at all levels, we don't get to meet them here.'
The volume closes with two ‘telling’ essays on the future, which describe the introduction of Disney and Clear Channel into the world of professional theatre. With this, Matz suggests, ‘the prospects for the performing arts seem to have been turned on their head. In an industry where ticket sales seldom cover even half the cost of production, the bottom-line business ethic of these two media-entertainment juggernauts may spell trouble for less lucrative, yet artistically valuable work.’

http://foundationcenter.org/pnd/offtheshelf/ots.jhtml;jsessionid=AE2VJFUBY5UCJTQRSI4CGW15AAAACI2F?id=192900032