Radio Smart Talk for Tuesday, April 12:

America's non-profit arts industry is big business. According to the national art advocacy group Americans for the Arts, the industry generates 134 billion dollars in economic activity each year, including 24 billion in tax revenue. But those numbers were arrived at in 2002. Earlier this year, Rocco Landesman, the Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, touched a nerve in the arts world when he argued, in essence, there's too much theatre. He told a Washington conference on new play development, "You can either increase demand or decrease supply. Demand is not going to increase, so it is time to think about decreasing supply."

Meanwhile, three new research studies based on the results of an NEA survey of public participation in the arts offer observations about what prompts people to attend – or not attend – arts events.

Is Landesman right? If audiences are declining nationwide, what's the turnout like here in Central PA? And just what are those factors that determine whether your show plays to a packed house, or to chirping crickets?

We'll talk over the intricacies of arts attendance with Lew Silverman, who reviews theatre for The Patriot-News, Melissa Nicholson, the Executive Director and Co-Founder of the Harrisburg-based Gamut Theatre Group, and Eric Grode, copy editor and writer for The New York Times – he's the former chief theatre critic for the New York Sun, and a mid-state native who's in town in connection with a production of the musical Hair, playing at the Hershey Theatre. (Grode's the author of a book examining the historical and cultural impact of that landmark show).

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