The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is supposed to aid Americans after large scale disasters such as fires, tornadoes and hurricanes. However, under former President Joe Biden’s administration, over $500,000 went to a New York City Theater, The Public, which promoted gender ideology and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI).
A playbill from a show late last year, Gatz, shows FEMA as one of the theater’s top financial contributors. It’s not clear what the theater used the funding for, though its website reveals it has focused significant funding and attention toward “anti-racism and cultural transformation” in recent years.
In the anti-racism section of its website, the theater lays out steps it has taken since 2021, when it launched its anti-racism and cultural transformation plan “following an in-depth, organization-wide assessment of our practices and extensive internal and external conversation.”
National Review adds that The Public told the outlet its FEMA funds were received under the major disaster declaration that was issued for the state of New York in response to Covid-19, which covered a period from January 2020 to May 2023. Under the declaration, the Public was deemed eligible for public assistance as a “Non-critical but Essential Private Non-Profit,” the theater said.
FEMA, however, responded to National Review with a statement which stated it is “taking swift action to ensure the alignment of its grant programs with President Trump’s executive orders.” Additionally, “notices of Funding Opportunities issued before President Trump took office have been rescinded,” the statement added.
“Under President Trump and Secretary Noem’s leadership, we are making sweeping cuts and reform across the federal government to eliminate egregious waste and incompetence that has been happening for decades at the expense of the American taxpayer,” the agency’s statement continued. “There will not be a single penny spent that goes against the interest and safety of the American people.”
National Review adds that in addition to the anti-racism work, the theater has hosted a program to train aspiring “BIPOC” – black, indigenous, people of color – theatre critics. The BIPOC Critics Lab was founded in 2020 by Jose Solís as a “first-of-its-kind program designed to train and create work by emerging BIPOC theater journalists,” the website says.
The theater has also hosted several queer programs, including a “one-woman rock musical” that was performed in March 2023 and was billed as a “look at a transgender woman’s very human experience.”