Like many performing arts organizations, the Lexington Philharmonic has shifted from in-person concerts to virtual events, airing educational videos and recordings of current and past performances on its website.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, performing arts organizations around the country have struggled to stay afloat while creatively finding ways to bring their work to people needing a temporary escape from the stress of a locked-down world.
Locally, organizations have shifted the way they deliver performances while modifying operations, as much as possible, to survive decreased revenue. While hard decisions have had to be made, these measures are necessary to help ensure a resilient future for the performing arts in Lexington, administrators say.
Economically, the pandemic impacted the arts in Lexington greatly due to a 50 percent reduction in Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government’s allocation for LexArts — the area arts council and united arts fund — in the city’s revised 2020 budget.
“While we were pleased to have been included in the mayor’s budget, the allocation was decreased … from $415,000 to $200,000,” said LexArts Communications Director Maury Sparrow. “This $200,000 was also stipulated as a match, and the resulting $400,000 was to be dedicated to regranting. In the past, the LFUCG allocation was provided as general operating support, which paid for programming initiatives, salaries, overhead, maintenance, etc.”
Sparrow explains: “As a direct result of the lowered allocation, four of our six general operating support [GOS] partners saw significant decreases in funding ... In addition to the decreases to GOS partners, our Community Arts Development grants pool was significantly affected.”
One of the six organizations affected is the Lexington Philharmonic. Executive Director Allison Kaiser said: “The 46 percent reduction LexPhil received from this year’s LexArts grant … significantly impacted our operating budget, because LexArts funding is provided for general operating purposes, which includes sta. salaries and overhead costs. These are expenses that program grants and sponsorships don’t normally cover, yet these expenses are critical to our ability to produce programs. As a result, this fiscal year we have been operating from a budget that is less than half our pre-COVID operating budget.”
Adding to this decrease is the loss of revenue from ticket sales and sponsorships for live, in-person performances, and the situation is difficult, particularly for the performers.
“The hardest part of all of this is that we haven’t been able to employ our musicians for full or even chamber-size orchestra concerts. Our artistic and administrative staff have been furloughed a few different times this season and are on 50 percent reduced hours and compensation for most of the season,” Kaiser said. “Our musicians have lost income, and opportunity to share their talents and passion with our audiences. Many have had to collect unemployment. So there has been psychic as well as financial hardship.”
Being a small organization with low overhead and no permanent facilities has helped AthensWest Theater Company weather the pandemic, said Artisitic Director Bo List. AthensWest is currently producing a series of radio productions.
For AthensWest Theater Company, things haven’t been quite as difficult. Producing Artistic Director Bo List explains: “Fortunately, we are a small organization with low administrative overhead. We have one part-time business manager and other than that no paid staff outside of the artists and technicians we hire for productions. Likewise, we neither own nor lease property. Pre-pandemic, these were all cause for frustration, since we lack permanent facilities to rely on or full-time employees to carry out our mission and get things done. However, that has become an asset at a time when theatres everywhere struggle to pay rent and employees.”
As a result, AthensWest hasn’t applied for PPE loans or other resources — assistance that both LexArts and the Lexington Philharmonic have relied on to continue to forward their missions.
Despite these difficulties, all three organizations have not wavered from their commitment to bring art to the citizens of Lexington. Modification has become the name of the game this past year.
The Lexington Philharmonic, for example, has focused on educational opportunities, community engagement and virtual performances.
Short performances and messages from musicians are shared via a LexPhilLivingRoom hashtag, which also post to a dedicated space on the orchestra’s website. The website also features educational videos geared toward young children and families, as well as ‘Encore’ broadcasts of past performances in partnership with WEKU 88.9.
This past fall, ensembles performed two LexPhil at the Loudoun House concerts, video recordings of which were shared with the community. The orchestra is also working to present more live performances later this spring and summer through its LexPhil in Your Neighborhood series, Kaiser said.
For the popular LexArts HOP, consistency has been tough, Sparrow said. “There have been months when we’ve canceled HOP altogether and months when we have had a Virtual HOP or a HOP Out. The challenge is that many HOP venues have been shuttered and most often, and understandably, those sites don’t mount exhibitions.”
But shows have been able to go on. Sparrow said the organization’s PNC presents the LexArts Gallery series have been popular. Limited hours are available for in-person viewing by appointment, and short videos of the exhibition are also available for virtual viewing and even for making purchases.
“The videos have been very well-received, so much so that we intend to continue them even after we can gather in person,” Sparrow said.
AthensWest, however, has eschewed the internet in favor of one of the oldest virtual platforms — radio. In partnership with WUKY 91.3, the theater company has presented a radio revival of its production of ‘The Importance of Being Earnest.’
An upcoming original production called ‘Limestone: 1833’ was written specifically for radio by area playwrights Adanma Onyedike Barton, Margo Buchanan and Kevin Lane Dearinger, with sound design by Samuel Lockridge. Its setting is Lexington in 1833 during the height of a cholera pandemic.
“Nothing replaces live theater, so we’re not trying,” List said. “Instead, we’re leaning on a medium that has been bringing quality entertainment to audiences for over a century — and trying to innovate as we go!”
All agree that with the introduction of a vaccine, the future of live performances looks hopeful, but there is still uncertainty as to when some semblance of normality will return. LexPhil, for one, is planning to bring the popular outdoor Picnic with the Pops back this August while hoping for smaller chamber programs in late 2021 and full orchestra performances in early 2022.
Said Kaiser, “We are planning for every contingency possible, including learning from our industry peers about which health and safety practices might need to be considered even once we’re able to perform in a pre-pandemic manner again.”
All also credit their ability to maintain a level of service to the community and to donors who have continued to support their organizations.
As Kaiser said: “Gifts at any level can add up quickly and enable us to keep working to meet this moment and then build back for a post-pandemic world.”
Though some speculate that the pandemic will irrevocably stifle the arts, List is optimistic.
“We won’t lose the performing arts. They’re resilient, and they will bounce back — hopefully sooner than later. I don’t worry about losing them. I do worry about underfunding, under-resourcing, under-attending and under-marketing them. To borrow a metaphor: These trees, in the absence of anyone to hear them, are silent as they fall in the forest. Fortunately, Lexington has a long history of seeing, or in this case hearing, the forest for the trees,” he said.