What about Glenn?

As dust from the MGM-Mandalay merger settles, many wonder what's next for arts patron Glenn Schaeffer

By Andrew Kiraly

Perhaps only in Las Vegas do art and commerce sit so close together. We have art galleries in casinos, museums that celebrate neon signs and a local arts movement that embraces the myths and realities of a metropolis built on gambling. Thus it's little wonder that, in a city where you can ponder an Impressionist masterpiece not far from the clang of slot machines, a corporate megamerger could quickly send ripples into the art world.

In this case, it's the MGM Mirage-Mandalay Resort Group merger, a $7.9 billion deal approved last month by the Nevada Gaming Commission. Now as key corporate execs are expected to leave--in what might amount to a veritable fleet of golden parachutes--questions surround the future of one executive in particular: Mandalay President and Chief Financial Officer Glenn Schaeffer. Published reports have gaming honchos predicting his departure from the merged company, walking away with $13.7 million in stock options.

What's Schaeffer's next move? It's a question circulating not only in business circles, but more bohemian ones: the arts and literary community.

Well-known as an avid supporter of the arts, Schaeffer might be called a renaissance executive, a 1977 Iowa Writers' Workshop graduate-turned-businessman who, over the last several years, has personally bankrolled a number of arts and literary endeavors. He's the founder and primary financial backer of the International Institute of Modern Letters, based in Las Vegas, and in 2000 established Las Vegas as the first U.S. "City of Asylum" for dissident writers who've had to flee their homelands. He's endowed the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop with $1 million for expansions. Other projects have local roots: He's said to be personally responsible for bringing the boutique bookstore the Reading Room to Mandalay Bay; he and his wife own Godt-Cleary Projects gallery, which transplanted to downtown last year. He's endowed a $2 million Chair in Creative Writing at UNLV, held by Nigerian writer and Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka.

But where will Schaeffer's golden parachute take him? Speculation abounds. In recent weeks there was word of Schaeffer relocating to Southern California; other stories held that he would pursue a literary career that he'd long put off. Schaeffer could not be reached for comment, but those close to the executive balk at such rumors, saying that in the wake of the MGM Mirage-Mandalay meld, Schaeffer's ties to the arts community in Las Vegas--and the world--aren't so tenuous as to be snipped by a corporate merger. Some say he might even ramp up his involvement. In the meantime, however, the projects he's connected to continue to flower.

The IIML's fine press, Rainmaker, has launched a project that involves subsidizing translations of works of dissident writers. Eric Olsen, executive director of the IIML, points out that works in translation are rarely profitable, since the cost of translating eats up profits. "We're working in partnership with four publishers, for starters, to subsidize the cost of translating works, and putting up some money for marketing as well," he says. In conjunction with those publishers, Rainmaker Translations will publish two works in coming months: A Dream in Polar Fog, a novel by Yuri Rytkheu, and Midnight's Gate, essays by Chinese dissident writer Bei Dao. Also on the horizon: The Black Mountain Institute, yet another IIML offshoot that will be based at UNLV.

"It's an Institute-UNLV joint venture to create sort of a Shorenstein [Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy] at Harvard here," Olsen explains. "While it's devoted to public policy, we'd range more widely, creating an institute where fellows can come to work on writing projects specifically for a general audience. There's a big, yawning gap between lay people and experts. The ultimate goal is to raise the level of public discourse in this country, which, based on what was going on in the presidential election, is pretty debased these days."

Meanwhile, the City of Asylum project made a leap forward last year, becoming a separate entity now called the North American Network of Cities of Asylum; it added a new city of asylum, Pittsburgh, in November. The organization will add a fifth city to its North American roster in April, says NANCA Executive Director Sarah Ralston. Six months into its life as a separate entity from the IIML, NANCA hasn't yet held a major fundraiser, but the indications are its main benefactor isn't going anywhere.

"We're still supported by private donations," Ralston says. "Glenn, for instance, is one of our largest donors."