The time comes when many cities and villages can turn from the basics of building roads and cultivating business to setting aside funds for the arts.
In Hoffman Estates, that time came last year, when the village’s fledgling Arts Commission took the first steps toward public arts programming. In Schaumburg, the time came almost 30 years ago, when the Cultural Commission was established.
Schaumburg boasts a 32,000-square-foot performing arts center with an annual budget approaching $1 million. Hoffman Estates has an outdoor amphitheater and a budget for arts programming of $18,750.
Despite the funding disparity, the two villages share the goal of providing publicly sponsored arts programming as a way to build community.
“Art is the glue that binds a community together,” said Schaumburg Mayor Al Larson. “Art and culture have as much of a role in establishing a community as anything else.”
The village-run Schaumburg Prairie Center for the Arts, 201 Schaumburg Ct., was built in 1986 and features a 442-seat auditorium, a 100-seat lecture hall and a video production studio.
Director Betsy Armistead estimates that 75,000 people pass through Prairie Center’s doors each year to see local talent and big-name talent. “We really have a wide variety of things.”
Hoffman Estates has no permanent arts center and holds musical events at the Village Green amphitheater in the Sears-owned Prairie Stone Business Park on the west side of the village. Indoor events are hosted in the Village Hall or in elementary schools. A volunteer Arts Commission plans 15 to 18 events a year.
“Sometimes we have (an event) that has 1,000 people, sometimes it’s a storyteller that attracts 15 to 20 people,” said Michelle Pilafas, Arts Commission chairwoman. Successful events have included a quilt show, which attracted about 2,000 people.
