Arts organizations across the country saw their grants pulled with little explanation, while a proposed federal budget sought to eliminate the arts funding agency altogether.

Quintessence Theatre opened its latest production over the weekend with an urgent plea to the audience over the state of arts funding: Call your representatives. The Mount Airy theater company is one of dozens of arts organizations in Pennsylvania — and hundreds across the country — that had been awarded grants from the National Endowment for the Arts for the year,

The endowment told arts organizations that it was withdrawing or canceling current grants just hours after President Trump proposed eliminating the agency in the next fiscal year.