Arts managers across the country apparently are fuming about advice offered by Michael Kaiser, president of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

On the Huffington Post, Mr. Kaiser writes that he has been scolded by his peers for saying that theaters, orchestras, and other arts groups should not cut programs or marketing due to the tough economic climate.

“One arts leader accused me publicly of living in a parallel universe,” he says. When the angry executive was forced to trim his program budget, “he was not amused that his artists kept saying, ‘Michael Kaiser says this, Michael Kaiser says that.’”

Mr. Kaiser says he is sympatheic to the concerns. “For the record, I do believe there are times when programming and marketing must be sacrificed, but I believe this should be a last resort, not a first resort,” he writes. “I prefer to cut every other cost imaginable, as my staff will tell you, and to continue to focus on new revenue that is generated from big projects and creative institutional marketing efforts.”

But Culture Monster, the arts blog for the Los Angeles Times, suggests that Mr. Kaiser indeed lives in a “parallel universe”—or at least enjoys much greater government support than most arts organizations.

The center’s allocation from the federal budget and Mr. Kaiser’s compensation “might indeed set it and him apart,” writes Mike Boehm, a Times arts reporter. 

Mr. Boehm suggests that one of the Kennedy Center’s biggest events—its annual presentation of lifetime achievement awards to famous artists and musicians—should become a fund-raising telethon with the proceeds going to the National Endowment for the Arts.

“We suspect that such a gesture might make your peers less mad at you,” he writes. 

Read The Chronicle’s article about Mr. Kaiser’s survival tips for cash-strapped arts and cultural groups.

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