Hoogland Center’s second act
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traction from Hoogland’s mission of nurturing the arts.

“Fundraising is not one of the things that we want to do on a daily basis,” Carlson says. “We want to be able to communicate everything that’s going on. I’d like to be able to do marketing and not fundraising.”

But Carlson says she has no budget for marketing, and instead is promoting the Hoogland’s “Keep the doors open” campaign, a fundraiser with an ominous name and a lofty goal: 600 donors giving $50 each month to pay off the Hoogland’s hefty debt. Currently, about $3.5 million dollars in bonds stands between the Hoogland and the financial independence it seeks.

One of a kind

Located downtown on South Sixth Street, the Hoogland is a former Masonic temple turned theater, art gallery and concert hall that also serves as a home for many of the city’s most active arts organizations. The Springfield Ballet Company and the Land of Lincoln Barbershop Chorus call the Hoogland home, along with groups like the Springfield International Folk Dancers and the Sangamon Watercolor Society. Asked whether it is modeled after any other facility, Carlson points out that the Hoogland is the only one of its kind that she knows: privately run, community funded, and housing several arts groups in the same place where they display their crafts.

“I think we’re kind of creating ourselves along the way,” she says. “I don’t think there are too many organizations like ours, which are completely autonomous, not for profit, don’t report to anybody.”

There are plenty of other venues in Springfield for the arts – the Prairie Capital Convention Center, the Sangamon Auditorium and the Muni, to name the big ones – but the Hoogland has made a name for itself because of its capacity to host multiple events at once with its three theaters and numerous smaller entertainment spaces.

“I’ve been asked before, ‘Do you compete with Sangamon Auditorium? Do you compete with Prairie Capital Convention Center?’ ” Carlson says. “Well, not really, because everybody has their own niche in terms of volume …. There aren’t too many other places you can go if you want to write your own play, and you’ve got 10 of your best friends to put on your own production. This place provides opportunities that you can’t find anywhere else.”

But it is the vast variety of events in the Hoogland that ultimately make it such a unique place. Between performances like the recent Laramie Project and Sylvia, the building

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