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The Kate Works to Hold on and Give Back

What does a cultural arts center do when a pandemic forces it to close its doors? In the case of the Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center, the answer is work to keep its ties with the community and supporters intact, come up with creative new ways to do things, and remain as positive as possible.

“This is a very strange and uncertain time,” says Executive Director Brett Elliott, who noted around 145 performances and events have been postponed or canceled since March 15 and through the end of the summer.

“And we realize there’ll be more to come,” he says. “That in itself is a significant challenge.”

In ordinary times, The Kate offers five to six programs each week, Elliott says.

“And to have no one in the building,” he admits, “is pretty sad.

“But we don’t want to open too soon,” he continues. “We want Connecticut to stay on track and we want all of this to be behind us.”

For months now, box office staff has been working with ticket holders, who have the options of holding onto their tickets and using them for the rescheduled performance (if The Kate has been able to arrange one), donating the ticket price to The Kate, or having their money, including fees, returned.

The hardest part of all of this, Elliot explains, is that “income is at five percent to what it was compared to a year ago. That’s scary for a non-profit. But many people are renewing their memberships because they want us to be here.”

There’s an enormous outlay of money when a venue books performers, Elliot says, so while The Kate has been busy refunding patrons to the tune of six figures, it also has paid 50 percent advances to artists who were scheduled to perform.

“We’re always advocating for artists...and we will always do right by them,” he says, but it can be difficult to recover that money.

In some cases, The Kate may arrange to bring the artists back for a performance at a much later date, possibly even two years from now.

While it’s not the first time the venue has had to face cancellations, “suddenly it’s not a few shows that have to change because of snow,” Elliot says.

The Kate Director of Development and Community Relations Robin Andreoli is focusing on fundraising and new ways to make now-traditional events happen.

“Our two biggest fundraisers are the gala and the raffle and we’re really rethinking those,” Elliott says.

The gala may happen online, he says and the raffle postponed until later in the year.

“We’re giving a lot of thought as to how we can raise the money to keep staff paid,” Elliott says. “They’re working really hard and will keep working really hard when we open again.”

For the most part, core, full-time staff are back at The Kate, although working in separate offices with safety measures in place. The box office is available online and by phone, but not in person.

Elliott is relieved that the Academy Awards have been postponed from February to April 2021; this gives The Kate an opportunity to hold its now-famous Oscar Party.

“We’re hopeful that it may happen,” he says.

Kate Camps for Kids

The Kate’s summer arts program for kids five to 10 years old will run from July 6 through Aug. 7, but with fewer children than in previous years. Rather than the usual program capacity of 35 children, each week two groups of 10 children will participate in camp on a separate floor of the building, even using different entrances.

A staff member will take each child’s temperature outside the building before leading them inside. Each child will be issued a separate basic art kit and instead of a live performance on stage at the end of the week, parents will be provided with a link for watching a video that showcases their children’s work.

Waiting for the state guidelines made planning and promotion difficult, Elliott explained, but they made it work.

“We rethought every piece of it,” he says. “These kids haven’t seen people their own age in months and it’s really important. We put all of our time and effort into figuring out how to do camps the very safest and best we could because we knew it was the one thing we could...accomplish this July.

“We decided to be committed to doing it and doing it well,” he continues. “We’re here for the community.”

Kate staff, together with the town, is working on some events that might safely happen outdoors this summer, according to Elliott.

“We’re excited that there’s going to be some announcement of something positive,” he says.