The report of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Inc., published as The Performing Arts: Problems and Prospects (McGraw-Hill, 1965), is the product of two years’ labor by a committee. The report's porridge-like prose shows that each member of the committee exercised some editorial judgment. Yet the document is distinguished for its effort to reach beyond diagnosis toward some prescriptions.

The assessment of the theatre's current economic situation offered by the report is predictable: “ … no one expects Broadway to collapse. … But Broadway as we knew it … is being challenged, its audiences are turning elsewhere.” According to the Rockefeller report, the theatre's future lies outside New York, with non-profit professional groups. The report further concludes that “the non-profit performing arts should not be expected to pay their way at the box-office.”