On a small stage just beyond the second-floor rotunda of the state Capitol, Oklahoma City University theater students Kevin Alvarado, Maddy Grimes and Joy Noel Stachmus take turns portraying three real-life people connected by one of the most famous photographs of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.
“The picture, it’s in our textbooks, the Oklahoma history textbooks. So, it’s always been basically unavoidable. … It was really hard for me and my brother,” said Stachmus, playing Bella, the sister of Baylee Almon, an Oklahoma baby who celebrated her first birthday the day before she died in the April 19, 1995, bombing.
“You want to see the pictures of her smiling. … You don’t want to see the picture of her dead body, basically.”
“I wish that photo had never been taken — and I’m sure Chris does, too,” adds Grimes, portraying Aren Almon, baby Baylee’s mother, while Alvarado, playing Chris Fields, the firefighter also featured in the famed photo, nods.
Joined by award-winning British writer Steve Gilroy, who penned the documentary play “In the Middle of the West” about the bombing, the OCU students were among about 300 artists, art administrators and advocates who gathered on April 17 — two days before the 30th anniversary of the OKC bombing — at the state Capitol for Arts & Culture Day 2025.
“It’s our biggest arts day in history, and I think we’re getting so much interest because of some of the threats to the sector we’ve already seen happen on a national level,” said Danielle Ezell, executive director for Oklahomans for the Arts, a nonpartisan arts advocacy group that spearheaded the industry gathering.
“We want to protect and advocate for the arts in Oklahoma. It’s a huge part of our economy here, and we’re, frankly, worried, based on the federal cuts we’ve already seen.”
What DOGE-directed cuts to federal funds have Oklahoma arts advocates worried?
Part of an ongoing program of controversial and often chaotic cuts led by billionaire businessman Elon Musk, who was appointed by President Donald Trump to oversee the federal Department of Government Efficiency, also known as DOGE, the arts and culture sector has already seen Oklahoma Humanities dealt a devastating blow with the loss of $1 million in funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Last month, Trump also signed an executive order slashing funding for the Institute of Museum and Library Services. In fiscal year 2024, Oklahoma agencies, including the Oklahoma Department of Libraries, received $4.4 million in federal funds through the institute.
“We’re concerned, of course, about National Endowment for the Arts funding and what will happen there. So, we’re really focused in Oklahoma on maintaining and protecting our funding for the arts and our arts sector on a state level this year,” Ezell said.
“Our arts ecosystem and infrastructure could take a hit if the (state) Arts Council’s funding isn’t maintained at its current level. … On top of the federal cuts that we’ve already seen, that could be hugely detrimental to the sector.”
The state could lose another $1 million or more in federal funding if the National Endowment for the Arts takes similar DOGE-directed cuts.
“We’re thrilled to have such a huge outpouring of the arts sector come in … from all corners of the state,” Amber Sharples, executive director of the Oklahoma Arts Council, the state’s NEA partner agency, said during Thursday’s event.
“We are so excited about the momentum that we see for this year’s budget. We know that things can be very tough on both the state and the federal level. … So, thank you for being here and giving voice to these concerns: 80% of our budget is state appropriations, and so your influence in this space has a monumental impact on shaping our state’s budget and investment in the art sector.”
Oklahoma’s growing arts and culture sector contributes $5.4 billion to the state’s gross domestic product and employs 48,659 Oklahomans, Ezell said, citing numbers from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.
“We’ve got to do everything we can here to encourage and support what’s a really critical economic sector,” she said. “We know that some of these cuts — like, for example, to the library funding — are going to hit our rural areas harder than they will in our metro areas. … So we’re focused on how can we help those organizations, and how do we make sure that kids in rural areas still have access to arts programs in the future?”
Who participated in Arts & Culture Day 2025 at the Capitol?
About 50 arts organizations from across Oklahoma, most of them nonprofits, participated in Arts & Culture Day at the Capitol, including Lyric Theatre, Canterbury Voices, RACE Dance Collective, Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center, Allied Arts and the Tulsa Office of Film, Music, Arts & Culture.
“The arts are so important in Oklahoma: they contribute to the fabric of who we are as a community. Definitely, they contribute to the economic viability across the state, so it feels even more important today to come out and support this sector that is larger than education and agriculture combined,” said Rebecca Kinslow, executive director of the Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition.
“The arts are always kind of facing threats. There’s always talks about budget cuts and how can we do more with less. But we’ve always been here. We will continue to be here. … We’re stronger when we work together.”
The nonprofit Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition supports visual artists living and working throughout the state while promoting public interest in the arts.
“It’s really about the storytelling. Every county in our state has had some kind of arts programming. So, I think when you’re talking to civic leaders, to legislators, to decision makers, it’s really about … bringing it down to the personal level, because at some point they have been influenced, I’m sure, in a positive way by the arts,” Kinslow said.
Attendees heard from an expert speaker about potential threats artists face from AI and were encouraged to write cards to their state legislators and other politicians. Participants could make beaded bracelets at a craft table or watch local artist Zonly Looman do a live painting. Costumed in a pink tutu and sparkling crown, an Oklahoma City Ballet dancer posed for photos, and a quartet from the Oklahoma City Philharmonic followed the OCU students on the stage.
Waiting for the musicians to go on, Executive Director Brent Hart talked about how the OKC Philharmonic also has been part of commemorating the Oklahoma City bombing over the decades, from performing at the first memorial service in the days following the blast to opening the orchestra’s Saturday, April 19 Classics concert with an “Elegy” for people in the community affected by the bombing.
“We’re definitely keeping an eye on the economic situation across our state and across our nation with the volatility that we’re seeing right now. It is impacting jobs, but it’s also creating stress on everyone. … So, it’s the time to lean into the arts right now, to give people something else to focus on,” Hart said.
“These are the types of things that are uplifting in times of crisis, and we learned how important the arts were during COVID. … So, we’re doing everything that we can to make sure that we have the appropriate funding to be able to maintain our free concerts and our (other) performances.”
This was the first year for Oklahoma City Repertory Theater to have a table at Arts & Culture Day at the Capitol, where people could pick up a pocket-size copy of the U.S. Constitution left over from the theater’s recent production of “What the Constitution Means to Me.”
“They’ve been very popular. … This one has no commentary around it. It’s just the Constitution, and nothing else,” said OKC Rep Executive Artist Director Emily Comisar.
“We want to be visible about the work we do and who we are, so those who are making decisions in our government can see that we’re just real people. When there are cuts to arts funding, it impacts real people. It impacts us, our jobs and our livelihoods, and it impacts our ability to continue to do great work in our communities.”