Breaking: NYC Theater Received over $500,000 in FEMA Funds While Promoting ‘Anti-Racist,’ ‘Queer’ Shows

The Public Theater in New York City received more than $500,000 in federal funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency all while promoting DEI and gender ideology.

A playbill from a show late last year, Gatz, shows FEMA as one of the theater’s top financial contributors.

The Public tells National Review the 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.

New York's theaters took a particularly hard hit under Covid restrictions.

In a statement to National Review, FEMA said it is “taking swift action to ensure the alignment of its grant programs with President Trump’s executive orders.”

“Notices of Funding Opportunities issued before President Trump took office have been rescinded,” the statement added. “In addition, Secretary Noem has ordered a freeze on all grants to non-governmental organizations that facilitate illegal immigration.”

“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 said. “There will not be a single penny spent that goes against the interest and safety of the American people."

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."

The section explains how the Public budgeted additional funds to support the cultural transformation plan and hired senior leadership to oversee “anti-racism, equity, and belonging activities.” The theater also began offering “multiple affinity spaces for employees” and an internal “anti-racism, equity and belonging dashboard.”

The Public hired an outside firm to review and assist in the creation of a new mission statement and “facilitated opportunities” for all of its board members to participate in anti-racism training.

The theater also has cultural transformation sub-committee working groups focused on disability and advocacy support; indigenous voices and land acknowledgment; public theater history; and staff container sessions.

The Public’s “about” section on its website also prominently features a land acknowledgement that the theater sits on the "original homeland of the Lenape people."

"The Public also gives our respect to the people of Seneca Village, a community of Black property owners who were removed from their land and whose village was destroyed in the creation of Central Park. We recognize the sacrifice that these ancestors made and honor Seneca Village's legacy," the section adds.

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.

“Solís noticed a gap in training based on his own experience as a cultural critic in the field and created an educational space for BIPOC writers who had not been welcomed into cultural criticism, whether due to systemic oppression, lack of opportunity, or because they didn't know they were allowed to see themselves as critics," the site explains.

The Public hosted its first lab cohort during the 2023–2024 season.

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."

The show, Trans Am, was created by Lisa Stephen Friday and features the music of Lisa Jackson & Girl Friday.

The band was a “cult favorite, punk-pop/glam-rock darlings in the 90s and aughts, regularly headlining NYC clubs like CBGB, The Knitting Factory, Arlene’s Grocery, Mercury Lounge and more,” the show’s description says. “They toured the country sharing the stage with Pat Benatar, The Psychedelic Furs, The Motels, Indigo Girls and other favorites, as one of the only bands with an out trans front-woman at the time."

Last year, the theater hosted a gala on behalf of Ring of Keys, an "artist service and advocacy organization and the only network of queer women, trans, and gender non-conforming professional artists working on and offstage in musical theatre."

The event, "Queering the Gala: a benefit for Ring of Keys," included the latest installment of the Ring of Keys’ “Queering the Canon” series, with that particular edition featuring Alan Menken.

“The program will pair the well-known songs of Menken with newly commissioned songs by queer women, trans, and non-binary musical theatre writers, all to be performed and authentically inhabited by queer vocalists and musicians,” a description of the event read.

Ring of Keys will hold another benefit at the theater’s Joe Pub next month called Queering the Canon: A Retrospective. 

“The Series reimagines beloved canonical songs as more expansive and inclusive through casting and performance,” the event description says. “Audiences will experience these songs queered alongside a new canon of works written in response to the originals.”

As for FEMA, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said she supports getting rid of the agency the way it exists today. Her comments came after Elon Musk, head of the Department of Government Efficiency, said FEMA is "broken." Musk was replying to a user on X who suggested FEMA should be shut down entirely.

Noem, whose responsibilities include overseeing FEMA, noted Trump has been "very clear that he still believes in the role of the federal government to come in and help people get back up on their feet — but there's a lot of fraud and waste and abuse out there."

Noem said she would recommend offering block grants to states and local officials in place of FEMA's current work.

FEMA came under fire last year after an employee ordered workers to avoid houses with Trump signs in Highland County, Florida, during hurricane relief efforts.

The employee, Marn'i Washington, was later fired from the agency. However, she alleged in media interviews that she was given the order to avoid the homes of Trump supporters by the supervisor because FEMA canvassers were repeatedly met with hostility by Trump-supporting homeowners. She noted FEMA policy advises employees to take preemptive action to avoid hostile interactions.

Whistleblowers also came forward with allegations that FEMA had mismanaged funds and left first responders waiting in hotels for deployment orders to assist Americans in North Carolina devastated by Hurricane Helene.