It is a truth universally acknowledged that theatrical productions require funding. In a country like Yemen, where salaries and the cost of living are low, the amounts required are paltry in comparison to those necessary for a show on Broadway or in a European theater: a play can be staged for a grand total of around three thousand dollars, including compensation for the cast and crew for several weeks of rehearsal; costumes; set design, and so forth. Yet for many Yemeni directors and acting troupes even this relatively small sum is an increasingly difficult one to amass. The current financial model for Yemeni theater is dysfunctional. Admission to performances is free, so there is no revenue from ticket sales, and opportunities for advertising, corporate sponsorship, and support from the private sector lie fallow. Theatrical activity is thus entirely, unhealthily dependent upon grants from the Yemeni government or from foreign embassies or NGOs. This system limped along through the 1990s and early 2000s, with the Yemeni Ministry of Culture (MoC) usually earmarking a modest but consistent subset of funds for the performing arts. However, in the wake of the Arab Spring and the power-sharing agreements that characterized Yemen’s transition, newly-empowered Salafist elements within the MoC have sought to divert funds away from artistic pursuits assumed to be secular in nature, and rather towards cultural activities deemed properly Islamic. This change has verged on the disastrous for Yemeni theater practitioners, many of whom now look with varying degrees of desperation to the international diplomatic and NGO communities to fill the financial vacuum. This is not entirely new: over the course of the past decade, the US and Dutch embassies, the German and French Cultural Centers, and other such organizations have all sponsored theatrical productions in Yemen, some of which have truly been stellar, pioneering events in the history of Yemeni theater. Yet the current climate poses a real danger to independent, authentic cultural and artistic production: cookie-cutter agitprop plays about hot-button issues like child marriage, religious extremism, and terrorism now abound, as directors and playwrights tailor their work to attract foreign sponsors. This presentation will analyze this phenomenon and suggest means to ameliorate its negative effects. Research will include attendance at performances in Yemen and interviews with practitioners, officials at the Ministry of Culture, and representatives of foreign organizations which provide performance funding.