Audience Interview: KIM BAKER - President of Kentucky Performing Arts

by G. Douglas Dreisbach

Kentucky Performing Arts’ family of venues are the primary performance spaces for several major art groups in Louisville including PNC Broadway in Louisville, Louisville Orchestra, Louisville Ballet and more. The KPA venues are The Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts, the Brown Theatre and Old Forester’s Paristown Hall, Louisville’s newest, state-of-the-art performance venue. We caught up with KPA President and CEO, Kim Baker, to see how they are doing amid the current situation.

This is an excerpt of the full interview. To read it in its entirety, visit Audience502.com.

Douglas Dreisbach: Tell me about your role at KPA and some of your top priorities. Have any of those priorities changed since the COVID-19 pandemic?

Kim Baker: My responsibilities mainly include working with our board to create a vision for KPA and then developing the strategy that supports it. So, as you might imagine, right now we’re in close contact with trying to figure out what we need to do for the future of the organization.

Leadership is a big part of what I do, not only within KPA, but around the community, I’m having to be very accessible and be a part of bigger conversations. I also spend time staying connected to the national sector to be aware of what’s happening.

Now, everything is accelerated, and it’s very timely. So very practically, I have to ensure that KPA remains healthy through this time period and that we come back strong when the virus passes and we can reopen our doors.

DD: When stages around the world went dark, what were some of your first thoughts, and looking back, were those thoughts accurate?

KB: I don’t remember the exact moment that it happened, but we really started increasing our cleaning regimen and making sure we had the right cleaning supplies initially. Then I remember across the country, that certain governors were just closing down places with gatherings of over like 300, and then it went down to 100, and then it went to 50 and 10. In a matter of hours, we went from, “This is coming. It hasn’t gotten here yet” to, “It’s here.”

At that moment, all I could think about was the health and safety of the staff, the volunteers, the artists and all of the audiences.

Lila Coogan (Anya) and Jake Levy (Dmitry) in National Tour of ANASTASIA, which was recently rescheduled for August. Photo by Evan Zimmerman, MurphyMade.

DD: Being the house for so many great organizations, how do you decide when to cancel or postpone a performance or show?

KB: We are staying in close communication with the groups who use KPA venues as well as the promoters that come in. We’re really just trying to plan out far enough where we can. For example, Anastasia is one of the shows that had to move, and they’ve got a time that’s slotted in August. We’re moving a lot of events, and we’re rescheduling a lot of events. We have been creating a lot of “Plan Bs” so that if we’re not able to be open, we can push those a little later into the season. We continue to stay very flexible, stay in close communication with a lot of the renters for the center itself.

DD: Why do you think the arts are such an important part of our community?

KB: There are two sides of the coin. There is the economic importance of the arts that is undeniable, producing around $462 million in annual expenses and total economic activity. There is just no question it is a huge driver from an economic impact standpoint. And then there is the cultural importance of the arts and live events. The arts have always been a reflection of who we are as a community and it gives us an opportunity to reflect and to come together and share those stories that relay the human condition. It provides a very powerful outlet for people to experience and think about things in a way they may not usually experience or think about.

DD: How can people support the Kentucky Performing Arts?

KB: I think the best way people can help right now is to take care of themselves and their loved ones and support KPA if you can. We have our annual donations,

where individuals become KPA donors and have access to advance ticket sales and many other things that connect them to KPA programming. We are asking that people continue to support KPA, give to the annual fund, and if you are able, to offer support during this time that would be great and critical for the arts community.

DD: Has there been anything this situation has forced you to do, that you weren’t doing before, that you will continue to do when it is all over?

KB: I would like to be laser-focused on what our priorities are and try to make sure we really give the time executing the plan. We have talked for a long time about building a work-from home scenario for our teams to offer more flexibility and all of a sudden, overnight, everyone’s working from home, and we’re staying connected, and we’re making it happen. I think that is something that we will continue to do more of. In the performing arts, we are so busy. We are working during the days, evenings and weekends, and so much of your heart and soul goes into what you do, but you really have to feed that part of your life that is your family, and those personal things.

If there is anything good that comes out of this, for me it is reconnecting with that and making time for that having a healthy life, which is so important to artists and to a creative community.

DD: Is there anything you’d like to add?

KB: I would like to put out there that KPA is just an anchor institution in our community, and it is so important for us to stay healthy and strong through this. We will come back. We will be there. We will be strong. And it’s going to take the community and their support to ensure we are here in the way we need to be. The arts are so interconnected in our lives and the center is really the heart and the hub where so many things come together. We can’t wait until can have that energy here again.