Lindsay Bauer brings theater skills to her role as arts center director

FAIRFIELD — Lindsay Bauer loves live entertainment, especially theater.

It was through theater that she was able to overcome her childhood shyness.

“I was ridiculously uncomfortable with myself and with people listening to me or looking at me,” she said. “In children’s theater, I was able to find my voice and have so much more confidence in myself. Since high school, I’ve always taught children’s theater, wherever I’ve lived or worked. There’s always going to be someone who needs it.”

Today, Bauer is putting those social skills she learned in theater to use as the Executive Director of the Fairfield Arts & Convention Center. In fact, Bauer’s other career as a theater performer is how she learned of Fairfield in the first place. In 2019, Bauer performed in the Stephen Sondheim Center for the Performing Arts in a production called “Map of My Kingdom,” a play about farm succession. She’s still performing that role to this day, and does six or seven shows per year.

As a young girl, Bauer had dreams of becoming a baker. She said she’s a “stress baker,” meaning she relieves stress by making something in the kitchen. However, she learned that professional bakers have to wake up early, at 4 a.m., and that was not the life for her.

She turned to her other love, acting, and pursued that as a career, obtaining a degree in theater from Northwest College in Orange City, Iowa. After college, she moved to Minneapolis and later Chicago, where she did theater education. After the birth of their son, she and her husband decided that Chicago was too expensive to live in, and moved back to Orange City, where they lived for five years. Bauer worked as the Director of Orange City Arts, the town’s arts and theater program. She also ran an acting studio for children in grades 1-12.

Bauer said that her experience has taught her that she’s happiest when she is involved in the performing arts.

“And I’m not good at anything else,” she joked. “If I’m going to save the world, I have to do it through art.”

Bauer began looking for other opportunities in 2020, and stumbled upon the job opening for Executive Director at the Fairfield Arts & Convention Center. She was hired that summer, and started her new job on Aug. 1 of that year, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was a terrible time for performing arts centers, which saw their revenue dry up as they were forced to cancel one show after another.

“As soon as we could, we started holding outdoor programming in the summer of 2021,” Bauer said. “It went so well, that we decided to continue that in future years. I love the idea of free programming, where there are no cost barriers to attending.”

That year, the arts center debuted an outdoor summer series that gave the public six free concerts held every other week.

The arts center just began its 2022-2023 season of indoor shows in September, and Bauer is hard at work planning next year’s season.

“I frequently have moments where I can’t remember what year it is,” she joked. “I’m already looking at a contract for April of 2024, and I was like, ‘Wow, that’s so long from now!’”

Since her responsibilities are so numerous and varied, Bauer has devised a system of focusing on one type of task for each day of the week. On Mondays, she works on staff and facility improvements. Tuesdays are dedicated to programming, booking next year’s shows. Wednesdays are for promoting programs through news releases and interviews. Thursdays are for fundraising, and Fridays are for “clean up,” tackling any odd job she didn’t get to in the first four days of the week.

Bauer said the arts center would not be the success it is without great staff members.

“We have wonderful people who work here, people I can trust and collaborate with and whose ideas and opinions are valuable to me,” she said.

Bauer said she likes working at a place where she feels that what she does matters.

“Not all of us are lucky enough to say that what we do really makes a difference, and I believe what we do makes a difference,” she said. “We create transformational experiences that build community in a unique place in Iowa.”

Call Andy Hallman at 641-575-0135 or email him at andy.hallman@southeastiowaunion.com