Lee Rosenbaum interviews and assesses the loquacious new NEA Chairman:

Veteran Broadway theater producer Rocco Landesman, off to a rocky start in his new gig as chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), demonstrated at a meeting of arts funders in Brooklyn two weeks ago that he had no plans to change his act. In the first major speech since assuming his post in mid-August (a keynote address at the annual conference of Grantmakers in the Arts), the chairman acknowledged the "reconstructive" work of his predecessors, Dana Gioia and Bill Ivey, in rebuilding the agency's "credibility—good grant by good grant."

He then said: "It's time now to move the ball down the field."

In a freewheeling conversation we had on the day of his Brooklyn visit, Mr. Landesman was true to form—brashly candid. But his provocative words in both the speech and our discussion suggest that he doesn't see what's looming between him and the goal—political opponents, waiting to tackle him.