Our Town

JULY 3, 2018

THE WAY WE WERE AND HOW WE WILL BE AGAIN.

Photo by Kendall Reeves

contributors Bloom December20January21 Vol.15 No.6

Moya Andrews Jack Baker Barb Berggoetz Megan Betz Paul Bickley Susan M. Brackney Aaron Brewington Molly Brush Craig Coley Olivia Dorfman Peter Dorfman Julie Gray Anna Groover

Editor & Publisher

Malcolm Abrams

Managing Editor

Rodney Margison

Design Director

Stephanie Reeves (Spectrum Creative Group)

Deputy Editor

Sophie Bird

Writers

Janet Mandelstam Linda Margison Michelle Mastro Nicole McPheeters Rosie Piga Pizzo Scott Russell Sanders Lee Ann Sandweiss Carmen Siering Greg Siering Carol Anne Smock Tracy Z. Turner Jana Wilson Douglas Wissing

Joe Lee ILLUSTRATOR: COVER Joe is an artist, cartoonist (whose Saturday editorial cartoon has run in The Herald-Times the last 17 years), author, and illustrator. A former circus clown, he has published books on Dante, Greek mythology, and the history of clowns. In 2015, U.S. Games Systems published his tarot deck, The LeGrande Circus & Sideshow Tarot. He is currently working on a graphic biography of Eva Kor to be Associate Publisher published by IU Press in the spring of 2021. Cassaundra Huskey Administrative Assistant Lee Ann Sandweiss WRITER: HELP OUR LOCAL STORES! COME SHOP Janet Arthur THE SQUARE Lee has been a regular contributor to Bloom since its first issue. She co-authored with James H. Madison the award-winning textbook Hoosiers and the American Story (Indiana Historical Society) and a memoir about her family’s late Scottish Terrier, “Lock Ness!” and Other Tales of Nessie the Scottie (BookLocker). Craig Coley WRITER: FOR FOODIES—9 NEW PLACES TO INDULGE Craig is a former schoolteacher and newspaper journalist. He enjoys hearing people’s stories and sharing them with readers. Craig lives in Bloomington with his wife, Heather; daughter, Madrona; and dog, Roxy. CORRECTION In the October/November 2020 issue, Bloom incorrectly reported that The Green Nursery had permanently closed. Instead, The Green Nursery has rebranded and now offers CBD and hemp products.

Illustrators

Mike Cagle

Martin Boling Haley Brown Jenn Hamm James Kellar Jim Krause Joe Lee

Photographers

Nicole McPheeters Kendall Reeves Jeff Richardson Stephen Sproull Mike Waddell

About Bloom Magazine

Bloom is an independent, free magazine whose target audience is Bloomington’s adult population and visitors to the area. Published bimonthly, 12,000 copies are available at more than 200 local retail businesses, hotels, and community centers. For a complete list, visit magbloom.com/get-a-copy.

If you would like a subscription to the magazine for yourself or as a gift for someone else, a subscription order card can be found between pages 32 and 33 in this issue, or you may subscribe online at magbloom.com/subscribe.

Bloom Magazine is published six times a year by Bloomington Magazine, Inc., P.O. Box 1204, Bloomington, IN 47402. Street address: 414 W. 6th St., Bloomington, IN 47404 Tel: 812.323.8959 Fax: 812.323.8965. The contents of this publication may not be reproduced either in whole or in part without the written consent of the publisher. Bloom Magazine assumes no responsibility for unsolicited materials. Subscription: $23.95 per year.

letters

I always make it a point to read your [editor’s] messages. They are spot on and should be a motivation for people to act in a moral, rational fashion. Our country is indeed in serious trouble. Let’s see if the American people can assess the truth and vote accordingly.

TIM TERRY

The premise of your recent issue— “What’s at Stake”—was absolutely brilliant, and essays were uniformly excellent. What’s more, they demonstrated what an abundance of talent and expertise, in so many areas, Bloomington has to offer. Even the portraits of the contributors were outstanding. Everyone looked great and the personality of each person came through. Kudos to all involved!

DALE BURG

We think the new issue was inspired and hit just the right tone for these times, as did the editor’s note.

BECKY SCHICK

What a marvel! Beyond the alwaysengaging skinny on local citizens, businesses, events, and issues, your last issue scaled new heights. Feisal Amin al-Istrabadi provided a concise and very-readable sketch of global political and economic world order since WWII, and how it has destabilized after reckless U.S. actions: withdrawing from treaties, insulting NATO allies, engaging in tariff wars. He brings the message home with his concrete example of our soybean farmers losing access to Chinese markets. His conclusion is eye-opening: rational people may reject our continued role as guarantors of international order, but then we must accept that another country, likely China, may write and enforce the world’s rules. Wow. Excellent writing, thinking, publishing.

arts/entertainment

Innovation Drives B-town Theater Groups During Pandemic Shutdown

by Tracy Zollinger Turner As large group gatherings remain unsafe for the foreseeable future, performing arts companies across the country have shut down—even Broadway theaters are dark at least until the summer.

Locally, Bloomington theater companies are innovating ways to keep audiences engaged while working together in the spirit of collaboration.

“We all have each others’ numbers and we’re all working together all the time to figure out the best way forward,” says Bloomington Playwrights Project Managing Director Brad Schiesser. “We all do different things and none of us wants to see the others fail.”

Most of Bloomington’s theater companies say they were financially healthy when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and that they have been able to pivot programming and adapt for the 2020–21 season. But if the pandemic continues to restrict the public’s ability to gather beyond that point, their futures become more uncertain. The unknown fate of the John Waldron Arts Center, which provides an affordable place for local theater companies to perform in its two theater spaces, seriously deepens that uncertainty.

The Future of The Waldron

In May, Ivy Tech Community College–Bloomington announced it was passing ownership of the John Waldron Arts Center back to the City of Bloomington. According to Sean Starowitz, assistant director for the arts at the City’s Economic & Sustainable Development Department, the official transfer of the building will likely happen on January 1, and the decision about its future will be shepherded by a task force appointed by the mayor and co-chaired by Miah Michaelsen, deputy director of the Indiana Arts Commission, and Valerie Peña, assistant vice president and chief of staff for the Office of Governmental Relations and Economic Engagement at Indiana University.

For now, Starowitz says the City’s plan for 2021 is to “maintain minimal but critical use for the livelihood of arts organizations,” such as Cardinal Stage, Stages Bloomington, and the Jewish Theatre of Bloomington. Feasibility studies and future use plans for the facility won’t be completed and presented to the public until much later in the year.

Cardinal Stage

It was a stroke of luck that Cardinal Stage sold its building on South Walnut in the spring, says Managing Director Gabe Gloden. Combining office space with the Bloomington Academy of Film and Theater allowed Cardinal to significantly reduce overhead costs. Funding from the coronavirus relief bill and the willingness of many season ticket holders to donate what they had paid for canceled productions also helped Cardinal remain stable.

Gloden says that figuring out how to drum up revenue in the digital realm has been a challenge, especially with so much free content hitting the internet. “Digital content creation and rollout is essential … but this industry has really struggled to figure out how to monetize things,” he says. “So, we at Cardinal thought, ‘Well, maybe this is an opportunity for us to counter-program. … Maybe people are going to be spending so much time in front of the screens that they’re going to be looking for opportunities to step away from them and interact with theater in a new way, possibly outside.’”

Dubbing its 2020–21 lineup the “season of artistic adventure,” Cardinal has developed a “walkabout radio play” series that invites participants to walk among local landmarks as they listen to a story unfold. “The response has been really positive,” says Gloden. “The challenge has been getting people to completely rethink the way theater is created and delivered and enjoyed.”

To that end, Cardinal created the Cardinal Cabaret Series, an interactive series of streamed performances (Home for the Holidays, December 11, 12, 18, 19; Swing into Spring, March 26–27; and Vintage Broadway, May 7–8) hosted by different teams of local artists and guests from past productions. Cardinal is also offering a virtual performance of the musical Ordinary Days, which will be presented on demand.

Cardinal is presenting a membershipbased program that gives ticketholders access to all of the season’s digital content for $100. “We’re going to overdeliver, I think, in terms of the value that the members are going to receive,” says Gloden. “I definitely tell people, when they ask the best way to support us, to purchase a membership and take a chance.”

cardinalstage.org/support Bloomington Playwrights Project

As the pandemic hit, the Bloomington Playwrights Project was enjoying the fact that its subscriber base had “septupled in the last six or seven years,” according to Brad Schiesser, its managing director. And the independent nature of the organization made it much easier to pivot to online programming than it was for others that had to negotiate the rights to perform online. “We have this

Gabe Gloden. Photo by Rodney Margison