Arts centers look to the future
The marquee is shown outside Woodstock Town Hall Theater, which is operated by Pentangle Arts and currently closed due to the pandemic. (Gareth Henderson Photo)
When the state clamped down on public gatherings in late March, one of the hardest-hit sectors was the arts. Now, two months into the shutdown and with Vermont abuzz about reopening, arts centers are confronting survival in an economy that was leveled by the COVID-19 pandemic.
On Tuesday, that conversation was brought to the masses as part of a series of online forums organized by the Montpelier-based Community Engagement Lab.
Six leaders of local arts centers joined the discussion, facilitated by engagement lab co-founder and arts educator Eric Booth. The panelists: Jody Fried, executive director of Catamount Arts in St. Johnsbury; Doreen Kraft, executive director of Burlington City Arts; Danny Lichtenfeld, executive director of the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center; Steve MacQueen, artistic director of the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts in Burlington; Hope Sullivan, executive director of Spruce Peak Performing Arts Center in Stowe; and Alita Wilson, executive director of Pentangle Arts in Woodstock.
From the start of the shutdown, these organizations have explored ways to engage with their communities and offer some entertainment through online platforms like Zoom, while keeping their doors closed. Now, as budgets grow tighter and summer looms, the question is how to do business with smaller gatherings, or none at all, when most revenue has stopped. Planning is also a hurdle, as arts centers weigh what to schedule, or not, with this year half-gone and all or most of 2021 booked out.
Alita Wilson, executive director of Pentangle Arts in Woodstock, noted the challenge of balancing the need to run programming with the ability to afford it. And of course, state restrictions are in play.
“Are we safer staying dark? That’s what keeps me up at night,” Wilson said.
Each of these centers are weighing what can be done with smaller crowd sizes, which Fried said may be the reality for some time. Catamount Arts’ board is led by a doctor, Fried said, who has warned the pandemic’s impact will last beyond summer.
“He’s saying we’re going to be limited to very small groups for the foreseeable future,” Fried said, adding that means until 2021.
Sullivan wondered about the public’s response once reopening is possible.
“Even once things open up and are allowed to, what’s the public’s comfort level to gather?” she asked.
All organizations are looking for solutions, and panelists agreed the key to future success, now more than ever, will be partnerships.
“Our survival is really dependent upon all of us,” Kraft said. “One of the things I’m feeling is that the community has really re-valued the role of the arts.”
Some have begun exploring that.
“We started reaching out across sectors, for business leaders to start weighing in,” Sullivan said.
Overall, any new partnerships with other sectors will need to be financially beneficial for arts centers, too, panelists noted.
“I’m hoping the other sectors will work to find a way it can benefit both of us,” Wilson said.
Fried thought the creative sector could certainly complement education in the fall, with schools also facing a changed world. Some of that interaction has occurred at the student level, with local families taking part in online events from their homes.
As the quarantine period took shape, online activities and events have enabled these centers to reach new and bigger audiences. MacQueen said that presents an opportunity for arts organizations to explore models beyond the longstanding donor-and-member system.
“How do we make the arts affordable and accessible to people, instead of doing these old paradigms?” he said.
Coming out of the first two months of shutdown, people are thinking about events very differently. For example, Catamount Arts created an online film slam, in which families made and submitted their own content, and they ended up with 80 films and numerous interactions. Fried said this “hybrid” model, pairing online engagement with home-produced content, could be the wave of the future.
“I think that’s the balance we’re going to have to find,” he said. It could also cut through the “Zoom fatigue” many experience from just watching a screen, he added.
Lichtenfeld said he is exploring the possibility of mixing local art with outdoor experiences, since it blends two aspects of the state locals and visitors enjoy.
“I think there’s room for us all to get incredibly creative with programming we can do outdoors,” he said.
Like many sectors, the arts face many challenges and are trying to quickly discover new possibilities for fulfilling their mission. Tuesday’s discussion was fruitful and gave hope. It also highlighted some of the biggest hurdles Vermont faces, such as the need for more access to broadband and the need for more federal aid. However, it also put the spotlight on how creative we are as a state. With collaborative energy, innovation and creative resources, our communities can make progress through this challenging time, with the arts being at the forefront.
— Gareth Henderson
