The National Council on the Arts, the advisory body of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), will meet in a public session on Friday, June 26, 2009, in Room M-09 of The Nancy Hanks Center, 1100 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C.
In addition to Council business, the public session will feature a poetry recitation by Will Farley, the 2009 Poetry Out Loud National Champion. Following Farley's performance, there will be a presentation on the digitization of museum collections, featuring the Baltimore Museum of Art's internationally renowned Cone Collection of modern art and a collection of Gordon Parks' photographs owned by the Meserve-Kunhardt Foundation.
Lastly, Signature Theatre, recipient of the 2009 Regional Theater Tony Award, will present excerpts from musicals by Stephen Sondheim and from their world premiere production of Giant. Signature received a 2009 Access to Artistic Excellence grant to support this production. Eric Schaeffer, Signature Theatre's artistic director, will also be present to speak about his organization's efforts to bring both new and classic musical theater works to the stage.