Inside HCPA: Nonprofit brings performing artists to Eagle River

It’s a Saturday evening in early April, and live music fills the air of the Northland Pines High School Auditorium gathering space in Eagle River, where the Headwaters Council for the Performing Arts (HCPA) is having its second to last show of the season.

The music is courtesy of Laura and Gerry Plank, who perform for arriving guests as HCPA board members sell tickets, preside over long tables filled with raffle baskets, and socialize with the incoming crowd before they all shuffle into the theater to enjoy “The Everly Set,” a celebration of the Everly Brothers featuring Jack Skuller and Sean Altman.

The event runs like a well-oiled machine, something Norma Yaeger, HCPA president, credits to her team of go-getting volunteer board members.

“We take a lot of pride in that. We really do,” Yaeger said a couple days after the show. “People have jobs, they do the jobs, and if something else needs to be done, they do it. And then they say, ‘What else can I do to help?’”

The HCPA, a nonprofit organization, has been dedicated to bringing quality, affordable family entertainment to the Eagle River community since 1982.

Yaeger, president for the last eight years and well-known as a pianist and overall supporter of the arts in the community, has a master’s degree in interdisciplinary humanities. “It was always my idea to be an arts manager, but women were not considered arts managers in the early eighties,” Yaeger said. “I had virtually no way to pursue that.”

Instead, she participated in every arts group that she could. Eventually, after seeing her at shows and accompanying music groups at the school, HCPA president Mary Kuppenheimer invited her to join the board. Within a year, Yaeger was named president.

The group’s founders were Jack and Jane O’Brien, and in the early days, the board was mostly women, primarily homemakers.

“The meetings were during the day on a weekday, and that’s kind of where the big volunteer pool was at the time, women who were homemakers,” Yaeger said. “The whole working women thing really changed the flavor of probably most nonprofit groups. So now we meet in the evening. And that enabled us to bring men on the board, which is extremely valuable.”

They were inspired by Braywood, an Eagle River restaurant, that would hear about performers and invite them to come and entertain residents.

“They put on such a good show that people said, we should do this, and they organized the original board,” Yaeger said.

Today, HCPA operates on a set schedule, knowing a year in advance what the following season’s performances are and working with talent agencies to secure artists.

“Music is 99% of what we do,” Yaeger said. “We used to do a little more drama. We used to do a little more comedy. Drama is extremely expensive to bring in. With the abundance of musical talent, we try to cover a variety of genres.”

The group often seeks feedback from community members, with a recent survey finding people are interested in country performers.

Board member Sue Waggoner said with many baby boomers now retiring, she’s noticed a shift in musical preference at events like the ones she attends at a retirement community in Florida.

“It’s funny. The last year that we went down there, it was younger music, the eighties, and rock and roll, as opposed to earlier music,” Waggoner said. “I think we’re finding that up here a little bit.”

However, appealing to both old and young demographics is a “catch-22,” as Yaeger puts it.

“This year at our strategic planning meeting, we finally decided to reach out to some other talent agencies to ask what we can bring in that would have a younger appeal,” Yaeger said. “But if you bring in music for a younger crowd, we still hope all age ranges will come.”

Because of that, HCPA aims for balance, citing last year’s high-energy performance by 20-something rock and roll pianist Jared Freiburg and his band the Vagabonds, which was followed by a one-woman tribute to Carole King.

No matter who the performers are, Yaeger said they all agree on how good the sound system is at Northland Pines High School Auditorium, which has been HCPA’s performance location since the beginning — in the old high school and the new auditorium since 2006.

“I know that the performers who come here always rave about that. They do. They love our school, our technical staff,” Yaeger said.

She added, “We have a really good working relationship with the school administrators, the school board, the school music staff, the custodians, the scheduling and facilities staff. We work extremely well together.”

In turn, HCPA hopes to do more youth outreach programs.

Past programs have included inviting Troupe Vertigo to work with ballet students and the high school jazz ensemble to be the pre-show performers. Next spring, it plans to hold its biggest outreach program to date.

Called SAXsational, HCPA will invite surrounding schools to bring their jazz bands to work with an established band director, and they’ll put together a show that will become HCPA’s headliner for the night. Yaeger and Waggoner said more details would be announced in May at HCPA’s final show of the season.

“I truly wish we could do more [youth outreach]. We even have a family who would support more of that,” Yaeger said, referring to the siblings of Dave Anderson.

Anderson was the school’s “everything music person,” Yaeger said. “He was the band director, the choir director, the high school music director, the elementary school director, and a piano tuner on the side. So he was not only very well known at school, but he was very well known in the community.”

When he died, his family wanted to continue his legacy and created the Anderson Memorial Fund, which the HCPA uses for its outreach programs.

“They’re definitely supporting the [upcoming] Kids From Wisconsin show.

They’re supporting the SAXsational program because they strongly believe in education,” Yaeger said.

As for other funding sources, HCPA relies on season ticket sales, playbill advertising, and grants.

They also recently started a raffle basket fundraiser, the idea of board member Wendy Harris. To get businesses to donate items, “she went to every shop and store in business,” Yaeger said. “She said she went to 150.”

Yaeger said that HCPA has found that, for the most part, businesses are more than willing to contribute. “My favorite story is when I went to [area restaurant] Buckshots,” Yaeger recalled.

“It was in the middle of the afternoon, and I saw one car in the parking lot. I went up to the door and knocked, and nobody answered. As I walked back to my car, a guy came to the door and asked, ‘Can I help you?’

“And I said, ‘Well, I’m here to see if you’d be interested in doing an ad in our playbill for the Headwaters Council.’ ‘Oh, absolutely,’ he said, ‘Where’s the form? Where do I sign?’ Then he pulled out the money, gave it to me, signed the form, and I went away with an ad.”

Waggoner had a similar experience at Sisters in St. Germain. “I went in there, and I barely got out of my mouth what we were doing before she turned around, pulled out a little coin purse, and handed me a one hundred dollar bill,” Waggoner said, still amazed.

Another business, IncredibleBank in Eagle River, and its predecessor, River Valley Bank, have long supported HCPA.

“The IncredibleBank team finds that attending our sponsored event is extremely rewarding,” said Market Manager Heidi Reiter Kramsvogel.

“We set up a table display with IncredibleBank merchandise and celebrate the evening’s event with all the attendees,” added Kramsvogel. “In fact, the HCPA encourages the sponsors of their show to attend and display their business. This offers a great opportunity for businesses to showcase their products or services and to connect with the community.”

In addition to local support, HCPA has received funding via a grant from the Wisconsin Humanities Council and was hoping for more. However, only days before this interview, Yaeger and the board learned that source was no longer an option due to the recent elimination of federal funding to Wisconsin Humanities (WH).

In a press release from April 3, WH said, “Congress has funded WH through the National Endowment for the Humanities for more than 50 years. The elimination of crucial funding for WH and 55 other state and jurisdictional humanities councils will have a devastating impact on communities and cultural organizations.”

Yaeger, holding back tears, called the news “extremely sad and extremely distressing.”

“It’s not just the money, it’s the idea of bringing people together,” she said. “If you dig a little deeper, it’s your mental health, your physical health, your social health, community health. Being together is so important, especially for older people who live alone.”

Despite the setback, HCPA will keep moving forward.

The amount of fun the group has entertaining the community far outweighs its challenges. Yaeger has the stories to prove it, from board members taking a group of Peking Acrobats snowmobiling to the time a member baked 10 cakes for HCPA’s 10th anniversary.

As Kramsvogel put it, HCPA members truly “enjoy bringing talent to our North Woods area for our community to enjoy.”

HCPA’s next show, “Sing Us A Song, You’re the Piano Man,” featuring the hits of Billy Joel by Jim Witter, is set for Saturday, May 17, at 7 p.m.

For the first time, it will also offer a summer performance, “The Heat is On: Summer’s Playlist,” with the Kids From Wisconsin troupe Wednesday, July 16, at 7 p.m. at the high school auditorium.

For more information, visit hcpapresents.com.