The Governor’s executive order that partially or fully closed businesses included those in the entertainment world.
Locally, that meant organizations that provide cultural stimulation and education, like the Pipestone Performing Arts Center, the Pipestone County Museum and Meinders Community Library, needed to explore alternative ways to bring the arts and entertainment to a vastly homebound community.
Meinders Community Library
Meinders Community Library Director Jody Wacker said that the library is exploring new ways of getting resources to its patrons in a safe manner during a time when social distancing is increasingly important.
Wacker said that at this time the library is providing curbside pick-up for materials and resources, and that patrons can find tutorials on how to reserve materials online, on the library’s website and social media pages.
“People can still come out and get books, they just need to know what they want before they come so we can pull it off the shelves for them,” she said.
The library has decided to remain open for limited hours and by appointment only for those who have no home access to the internet, printers or other resources that they need, or for those whose only social interaction takes place when they visit the library and use digital resources to communicate with friends and family.
Wacker also said that the library reached out to the city public access channel, asking to have story time videos that they produced available for the public.
“We will continue to do storytime so that parents can have their kids tune in and continue to get that storytime experience,” she said. “We are also engaging book clubs, talking about books and answering book club questions. We’re trying to figure out ways that we can continue to engage our community as much as possible so that the isolation isn’t so significant for them.”
The library has also looked at how it can direct some funding for library purchases to digital materials, “so that we can increase access to our digital platforms to have more books available for people to read from afar,” Wacker said.
Pipestone County
Museum
The Pipestone County Museum’s Executive Director, Susan Hoskins, said the museum is considering digital delivery options for some of its programming, but with the mandatory temporary shut down kicking off what would be the start of their busy season, they are also keeping their eyes on the financial impact being placed upon the institution. In addition to seeing a major decrease in patronage during the shut down, the museum will experience financial losses due to the cancelling and postponement of certain events, in particular its Annual Spring Fling fundraiser that had been scheduled for March 21.
“We had planned to have $3,000 from that,” Hoskins said. “Rescheduling of that event is very difficult to do with the vendors; they put it on their calendars. We start booking them months in advance.”
Although the executive order that closed the museum was issued only until March 27, the possibility of its extension, Hoskins said, has made it difficult for the museum to consider a safe date to reschedule the fundraiser and some of its other programming.
“Our programming just was picking up and we had so much momentum, you know,” she said. “We had really made a lot of plans with programming on how to kind of reach out and serve the community, and we had been getting some good response with that, and of course, it’s just completely flatlined.”
Pipestone Performing Arts Center
Mark Thode, the managing director for the Pipestone Performing Arts Center, said the PPAC and the Calumet Players are also facing an uncertain financial future with the temporary shut down. The type of cultural experience that the center provides cannot easily be delivered in a digital format, and the banishment of large gathering prohibits cast members from rehearsing and performing, even in front of a camera.
In addition to grants, the center relies on its patrons to purchase tickets for its performances, some that have been canceled, like the Al Opland Singer’s spring performance, originally scheduled to be delivered on April 17.
“The Al Opland Singer’s have been in rehearsal for that show since the beginning of the new year,” Thode said. “They had already put in a couple of months of work and having to cancel and not share all of their hard work with the public, that’s tough.”
Thode also said that the children’s theater Spring show set for March 27 had been postponed, for now, and the center is trying to keep a positive outlook for the summer musical, hoping that the executive order is not extended, as rescheduling can be difficult.
“It is kind of complicated with a production because you have royalties to work with,” Thode said. “When you get the rights and royalties to produce a show it is for a specific date, and so you have to get permission from the royalties companies and the publishers to make sure that you can produce the show for the public on a postponement date.”
Thode said that the center has been in contact with those companies, and that he believes the children’s theater has been given a year now to reschedule a public date for their show.
Looking forward, like other cultural institutions in Pipestone, Thode said that he foresees a significant economic impact the shut down will have on the arts in Pipestone, and on the economy as well.
“There’s going to be a huge economic impact in the community,” Thode said. “People are coming from all over to see shows and they are eating at local restaurants, staying at local hotels they’re getting gas at local gas stations. If we don’t hold events at the Arts Center as we have been, those people aren’t going to have a reason to come.”
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COVID-19's impact extends to arts and culture - Pipestone County Star
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