The starving arts
Springfield arts scene struggles, but survives
ARTS | Rachel Wells
Fred Jarosz is a talker. To meet him, the executive director of the Hoogland Center for the Arts, and ask him about the health of the arts in Springfield is to be taken on a whirlwind aural tour of board meetings, donor outreach and Hoogland performances and workshops. With great exuberance, Jarosz peppers his tales with both new and well-rehearsed phrases designed to garner a laugh, inspire awe or elicit a raised eyebrow.
“Most people now say, ‘Shut up. You talk too much,’” Jarosz admits. So, it’s surprising to learn that Jarosz was an all but silent kid until in the fourth grade, with a push from a teacher, he portrayed Scrooge in A Christmas Carol. After retiring from Horace Mann, where he served as executive vice president and chief marketing officer, Jarosz performed as a well-paid event speaker before taking the lead at the Hoogland. “None of that would have happened, I am absolutely convinced … but for that teacher who said, ‘This is the vehicle to put this kid in to get him up there and come out.’” It’s stories like his own that Jarosz rattles off as he tries to define what it is the Hoogland does. “This is not just an 80,000-square-foot building,” he says, describing a shy, nearly speechless child who participated in a theater workshop at the Hoogland last summer and a week later was belting play lines across a stage. “The Hoogland is magic. This place comes alive every single day, 500 times a day.”
With 15 different organizations housed under the same roof, collaboration and collective energy are some of the Hoogland’s key strengths, he says. If the Hoogland were to close, some of the groups using its facilities would also likely struggle to find comparatively low rent at a place properly equipped for their needs. It’s a thought that has run through Jarosz’s head more than once since the recession hit and the Hoogland was forced to develop multiple fundraising schemes just to make its $25,000 monthly mortgage payments. With about $3.2 million left to pay on the $4 million debt, the Hoogland has a long way to go.
“Is our position tenuous? Not tenuous, but critical,” Jarosz says. He adds that the Hoogland is in competition for donations, not only with other arts organizations but also with social service groups and schools.
Richard Haglund, director of the Sangamon Valley Youth Symphony, a resident group at the Hoogland, says it’s difficult for donors who are also supporting the homeless and the hungry to provide money to support music, which some think of as simply a frill. “But these are the future moneymakers, the people who will be contributing positively to society and the people who will be helping out people in the future,” Haglund says of the young students he conducts. He says that learning to play music at a young age teaches children discipline and prepares them for success as community leaders.
Organizations like the Springfield Area
