April 6, 2010 Boise, ID Guest Blogger: Mark Hofflund, Managing Director, Idaho Shakespeare Festival

Chairman Landesman with Mark Hofflund (left) and Boise Mayor David H. Bieter on the Art Works Tour. Photo by Kyle Morgan

It was a great day in Idaho yesterday. How fortunate we are to know NEA Chairman Rocco Landesman and benefit from his insight, experience, and leadership. Chairman Landesman understands how strong teamwork is essential to success not only on Broadway but also in Washington, DC; not only in the arts but in public service as well. As he studies a sampling of cities across America, from large to small and rural to urban, it becomes clear that his intelligent and generous leadership is exactly what the country needs amid economic stress and intense partisanship. The arts leaven our public life and bring new vitality to our republic in ways both unique and consequential. We are immensely fortunate to have a leader who?in a collaborative and searching journey through our country to discover how art works?can return to our capital and work with elected leaders to ennoble the lives of our children, raise levels of national knowledge, and ?make flexible the knees of knotted oaks? with vigor, skill, and affection.

U.S. Representative Mike Simpson (Idaho-2nd District) with Chairman Landesman at the Idaho Shakespeare Festival?s Shakespearience presentation of Othello for high school students in Jerome, Idaho, part of the NEA's Shakespeare in American Communities initiative. Photo by Kyle Morgan