After a year of canceled shows, little social interaction, and general bad news for Rochester’s artist community, local country artist Luke Hendrickson looked out over a crowd of people watching an outdoor live show recently and smiled.

Slowly but surely, he says, the appetite for music in Rochester — coupled with all forms of live entertainment — is coming back.

“There have been some really hard days in the past year, for sure, but I’m so grateful to be in the position I’m in right now,” said Hendrickson. “It feels like there’s an energy in town around every show these days. People are excited to get out and enjoy the music — I’m just happy to be a part of it.”

Hendrickson has played in various bands around southeast Minnesota for over a decade, recently making it his full-time job. He spent his pandemic days watching over his kids doing distance learning, working odd jobs to earn some extra cash, and taking some time to write a new record — in place of his original plan to tour the country in support of his latest full-length release, One Night At the Crystal Lounge.

It wasn’t always the easiest situation, he says, but one that paid dividends in the end: he got to spend more quality time with his children, and the album is all written and ready to be recorded — just in time for the biggest show of Hendrickson’s musical career. He and his band will be the first people to play on a Down By the Riverside stage since 2019, when they take the stage as openers for Lindsay Ell on July 11.

It’s an opportunity Hendrickson has sought for years, but it’s the first time he’ll get the chance to sing to the throngs of people that come to Mayo Park. While he can only dream of the moment for now, the mere thought of playing the first note feels surreal to him.

“This is going to be the largest crowd I’ve ever played to, for sure,” says Hendrickson. “It has me shaking a little bit just thinking about it.”

It will be one highlight of a summer that promises to bring many highlights for this rising local act. Hendrickson hit the road to play shows for the first time since the pandemic began over Memorial Day weekend, with dozens more shows in the pipeline, including a performance at Thursdays Downtown on August 5. He’s also headed into Carpet Booth Studios this July to record the album he wrote during the pandemic.

While a “normal” musical experience may not be possible just yet, the opportunities to play live shows are coming back — and Hendrickson plans to make the most of it.

“I’m excited to get back to doing what I love to do,” he said. “Playing music’s in my blood. It’s great to record, it’s great to play by yourself and practice… but there’s no feeling in the world like playing live to a crowd.”

Kids find their spark

Inside the Apache Mall, Spark — formerly known as the Minnesota Children’s Museum of Rochester — is approaching the one-year mark since first opening in the 7,000 square-foot space. Most of those days were spent frantically scrubbing surfaces and monitoring capacity, says executive director Jennifer Staley — but she says this summer’s outlook is a little brighter.

“We have so much in the pipeline, and we’re constantly growing,” said Staley. “There’s three of us in the office, and sometimes it feels like our heads are going to burst, we’re working so hard.”

Staley joined the Spark team in the middle of the pandemic, while the facility was still closed due to virus concerns. She’s overseen the slow re-opening of the facility, and now she says Spark is moving full steam ahead at 100 percent capacity.

Photo by William Forsman (also responsible for cover photo)

A handful of new indoor exhibits are planned for the summer and fall, plus a new outdoor space that will re-purpose a little-used section of sidewalk. She’s also planning to add a new program to the museum’s arsenal, bringing the youngest and oldest people in our population together: senior citizens will be invited to Spark to help teach young kids reading skills.

“There’s so much to be excited about here,” said Staley. “We have so much positive momentum going right now. I think we’ve always been working to realize our full potential, and this year might be our opportunity to reach it.”

The curtain rises again

Across town from Spark, in a building on 7th Street NW, one of Rochester’s premier theatre troupes is also working to unlock their full potential in multiple ways — not just their performances, but the space they utilize to do so.

The Rochester Repertory Theatre, led by executive director Merritt Olsen, was in the middle of a two-week run of the play Strange Snow when the virus struck. As the pandemic ran longer and the team realized that there wouldn’t be an in-person performance for a while, Olsen realized he had an opportunity to improve the rest of the theatre — overhauling the bathrooms, concession stand, and foyer area.

With the help of a host of volunteers — many with some form of involvement in the theatre itself — Olsen says the new-look foyer will be ready by the fall.

“This project really wouldn’t be possible without a bunch of people doing this work for us just because they care,” said Olsen. “That’s a really gratifying feeling.”

In the meantime, as they say in theatre, the show must go on. As construction continues inside their normal home, the Rep made their 2021 return to the stage in mid-June with a nine-day run of the play Love Letters, using the Rochester Civic Theatre’s Black Box as their temporary main stage.

Olsen says his organization is taking a measured approach to returnign to live theatre. Love Letters is a two-person show with little movement, and the characters — a husband and wife — were played by a real-life couple. The Rep’s next production, Turn of the Screw, is also a two-person play.

Those choices were intentional, says Olsen; the risk of any kind of outbreak among cast members is much smaller with a tiny cast.

“We wanted to come back with baby steps,” says Olsen. “We can’t just come back with a musical that needs a huge cast, lots of group rehearsals, what have you. We needed to prove that we can bring the smallest shows back before we go big, and I think we’re on the right track.”

The next challenge, Olsen says, will be successfully returning to the Rep theatre space, which has a tightly-packed seating arrangement for a few dozen people — but after a successful return with Love Letters, Olsen feels optimistic about raisin the curtain again this year.

“The reason we do all of this is for an audience,” said Olsen. “You can rehearse until you’re blue in the face, but it’s not the same thing until people show up and you start to exchange emotional energy between the actors and audience.”