The Hill Country Arts Foundation, in Ingram, Texas, was prepared to put on a show. It was one week out from the opening of the outdoor production of the musical Jimmy Buffet’s Escape to Margaritaville. Sets were in place, costumes finished, and the cast had wrapped final rehearsals. Even the piano and sound equipment had been positioned on the stage. Then, on July 4, the Guadalupe River flooded and left a path of destruction.
“Everything got swept away. Our set, all of our dresses, tools, all of our sound equipment including the piano,” said Sarah Tacey, executive director of HCAF and the musical’s director. “There’s actually a really gorgeous Margaritaville sign that is still up in the theater’s flight that we can’t bring down.”
In the immediate aftermath of the flooding, volunteers poured in from around the region.
“We had volunteers from all over the place, some people I didn’t even know, and then people who hadn’t been out here in years just showed up. It was a crazy kind of reunion,” Tacey said.
The theater community grieved and cleaned together as they took stock of the damage.
The theater’s main foundation, which was constructed in the 1980s and seats 520 people, still stood, but with missing walls, support beams, and electrical wiring. The flooding also completely destroyed HCAF’s ceramics studio, indoor black box theater, offices, and artists’ residences. The repairs are estimated to cost upwards of $15 million. And four months down the line, Tacey is still unsure where the funding will come from.
Sarah Tacey looks out over the outdoor theater at HCAF. (Photo by Ilana Newman / The Daily Yonder)
“It’s a lot of fundraising, and it’s a lot of waiting on FEMA,” Tacey said. “They seem like they want to help. It just takes so much time.”
Tacey said nothing could have prepared her to untangle the bureaucratic processes that follow devastation. They started the process with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) early, contacting people and getting things moving, but the agencies needed extensive paperwork, including scopes of work, that they simply didn’t have.
Sarah Tacey, executive director of HCAF, on the grounds of HCAF. (Photo by Ilana Newman / The Daily Yonder)
“You have a terrible disaster and you are desperate for help, but nothing prepares you. I have an MBA. There was no ‘deal with FEMA after your natural disaster’ class for my master’s program,” Tacey said. “So you’re in these dire straits, and you don’t even know what to do.”
Now that the process with FEMA is underway Tacey is facing gaps that put pressure on fundraising efforts. Between FEMA and the Hill Country’s Community Foundation, Tacey hopes that half the costs of rebuilding will be covered. The other half, over $7 million, she expects to fundraise.
But for HCAF, even in the most extreme circumstances, the show must go on. Three weeks after the flooding, on the night that Escape to Margaritaville was supposed to close, HCAF put on a concert.
“We set up a stage in the parking lot, and we did a little Margaritaville concert. We had no set, and we’re just literally in the parking lot,” Tacey said. “People showed up. It was what everybody needed.”
In August, they performed Shipwrecked! An Entertainment on a set they built in the front lawn. The play was originally planned for the indoor theater, but the team improvised.
“We just built a set out here,” Tacey said. “We set up a stage and then we set up seating. It actually worked really well.”
Tacey said they are exploring doing another production on the property, but she is hopeful that the outdoor theater can be reopened soon, even if it’s imperfect.
“I would love to be back on the outdoor stage next summer,” Tacey said. “It’ll be down and dirty, but I hope we can do it.”
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