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This is the first in a two-part series discussing the post-pandemic recovery in the Fountain Hills art community.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, a wealth of newly adapted words and phrases began popping up in everyday conversations. "WFH," "essential business," "frontline" and "stimulus" were terms that became widely used to define what the world was experiencing.

For the visual learners, English letters (V, U and W) were adapted to physically resemble the shape of economic recovery. One such letter, K, with its two angular, sloping lines, was used to describe how different industries had varied, sometimes opposing recovery trajectories.

An example of a K-shaped post-COVID recovery can be seen in the booming online retail and data services industries which struck gold in the transition to a remote environment while the food and hospitality industries experienced major drawdowns immediately following stay-at-home orders.

In Fountain Hills, the K-shaped recovery is manifest in the arts and entertainment community where local attractions like the River of Time Museum & Exploration Center and the Fountain Hills Theater have struggled to stay afloat while local independent artists, art galleries and complimentary art businesses like framing studios have otherwise fared well in a post-COVID world.

In this story, The Times will discuss two declining arts communities and next week will cover the arts that have rebounded since COVID.

Stage fright

When the pandemic hit in 2020, the Fountain Hills Theater was one of the first locations to close its doors.

"We require people to sit together," Artist and Technical Director Peter J. Hill said. "We only have 123 seats, and if we’re five feet apart, we can seat 10 people in the theater."

To avoid a complete loss of the 2020-2021 season, the theater moved productions outdoors into the parking lot. With a portable stage rented from local real estate titan Phyliss Kern and a $129 FM radio transmitter, the Fountain Hills Theater adapted quickly to a rapidly changing environment.

In 18 months, a total of 20 productions and performances were held outdoors before the theater was allowed to return to its mainstage. But with the COVID health emergency officially over, Hill said the nightmare has only begun as the theater works desperately to get visitors back in their seats.

"We try to do a combination of musicals and straight plays. We try to give [the audience] light comedies and dramas so there's a variety of things to come see," Hill said. "But we just got really, really lazy about getting our entertainment delivered to us [at home]."

Despite talking about the setbacks of the community theater, Hill still wears a big smile and laughs often. Celebrating his 30th year with the theater, Hill said he does this work because he couldn't envision himself doing anything else.

"It's either this or starve," he said, adding that it's a perennial struggle to get people to enjoy the fruits of their labor.

As a non-profit organization, the theater earns approximately 40% of its income from donations and grants while the rest is generated from ticket sales. And while many theaters build every set from scratch, Hill said with such a tight spending budget, he uses "reusable" sets that have layers of paint caked on from past seasons.

The theater applied for and received a PPP loan which was helpful in the short term, but Hill said the pinch is still being felt nationwide, pointing to the longest-running show in Broadway history, "The Phantom of the Opera," which was hemorrhaging money before it finally called it curtains last month.

Hill said finding stability as a community theater is a "crapshoot," describing one particular show last year which did unexpectedly well, while another production featuring one of the most prolific, award-winning plays in history fell flat.

"Both people who saw it loved it," he said.

Making cuts

Initially a volunteer-based museum, the L. Alan Cruikshank River of Time Museum & Exploration Center hired Executive Director Cherie Koss in 2017 to take the museum to the next level as a properly staffed non-profit organization. In 2019, with two years at the helm, Koss said the museum was on a strong trajectory entering 2020.

"Our 2020 budget and operational plan was based on that success and that pretty much fell apart," Koss said.

The museum received two PPP loans to get them through the pandemic which helped with operational costs and payroll, however, times have since changed.

"Staff voluntarily cut back on hours to reduce payroll costs through the end of 2023," Koss said. "We’ve had volunteers step up to keep some activities going that were traditionally staff operated.

"We don't want to cut anything, we don't want to go backward, but we’re right at that point that if we don't start getting some heavy funding, we’re going to have to start making cuts."

Last summer, the museum celebrated the completion of its major renovation which features enhanced interpretive exhibits about early life in the Lower Verde River Valley. Curated artifacts and fabricated replicas lend realism to each display, including one special exhibit that allows participants to design their own space and pose for a selfie in front of their finished masterpiece.

The summer celebration fundraiser traditionally sells out with over 300 guests. Last summer's fundraiser brought out roughly 100 attendees and just about broke even, Koss said, explaining that while visibility is critical, it doesn't always translate to funding the museum's activities.

Emerging from COVID, many small museums, including the River of Time, began examining what might make the next emergency easier. In 2021, the River of Time began taking steps toward reaching accreditation by the American Alliance of Museums to signify quality and credibility to government entities, agencies, donors and the entire museum-going public. When the yearlong assessment was complete, Koss said the biggest takeaway was that "we are not sustainable. That we can't fund our operations at the level that we need to in perpetuity."

Arts alive

When it comes to live theater, Peter J. Hill said that the audience shares an intimate space with actors that cannot be duplicated by watching a film.

"There is an immediacy to live theater," Hill said. "The actors up there are walking a tightrope because, at any time, somebody can blow a line or forget lyrics to a song. That's why so many film actors that grew up in film and then tried to do Broadway fail miserably because they just simply can't comprehend the idea of one two-hour take."

Entering her sixth year at the museum, Koss said the last two have been the hardest she's ever had in her professional career.

"I don't know what the answer is," she said. "I know where it can go, I know what it can be, but for the first time, I’m questioning whether we can get there."

With many small museums shuttered following the pandemic and community theaters in crisis, the biggest loss may be felt by small towns like Fountain Hills as they watch the light of their arts community flicker.

"I’ve talked to the artistic directors of virtually every theater in town and we’re all experiencing the same thing," Hill said. "I just got an urgent email from the Oregon Shakespeare Festival up in Ashland asking me to ask my supporters to help support them because they’re on the verge of closing. That's scary."

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