- [Announcer] Funding for this program is provided in part by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage fund, and the citizens of Minnesota.

- Due to the rising community transmission rates in Rochester, KSMQ TV has decided to ensure the safety of our guests, crew, and hosts by moving back to remote taping.

As always, we will have great stories for you about what's new and next in our city.

Thank you for watching and being flexible during this changing times.

Coming to you from Rochester, Minnesota.

"R Town."

♪ Explosions like a heartbeat ♪ ♪ Yeah my mind came rushes ♪ The Rochester Civic Theater is turning 70, and here to tell us all about the festivities marking this grand anniversary is Misha Johnson, executive director at the Rochester Civic Theater.

Welcome back to our town, Misha.

- Thank you so much for having me.

- So give us all the details.

When and where is this birthday bash happening, and what will the program be like?

- Absolutely.

The Rochester Civic Theater is turning 70.

We're really excited.

So we're throwing a big old birthday bash and fundraiser.

It's gonna be here at the Rochester Civic Theater on August 21st, which is a Saturday, Saturday evening.

The festivities start with a VIP dinner at five o'clock, and then the general admission is at six.

And you're gonna get to see a snippet of all the scenes from our season.

- That's so awesome.

Seven decades is a very long time, of course.

Can you tell us a little bit about the founding history of the theater?

- Yeah, it was founded in 1951 and it's really amazing because it started out in a log cabin and then the founders actually purchased this land that we sit on today, and then eventually gave it to the city.

And so this is a really historic thing that happened by a community of volunteers that wanted art to thrive in Rochester, and we are so grateful that it is still thriving today after 70 years.

- So the program sounds like it's gonna be a lot of fun.

Is there a particular part of it that you're excited about, that you're excited for people to partake in?

- You know, I think during all of this COVID business, I think we're all just excited that art continues, and we're finding a way to make it happen still, and that's really exciting.

It's exciting that we're turning 70, we're excited to have a LaSonya Natividad who's playing with our band afterwards.

The Madison Parish Ensemble.

So she's gonna be there helping us celebrate and really just to get people back to the theater.

It's important to remember we're still here, and that art still exists and yeah, we're excited to welcome everybody back.

- The theater has gone through many changes in the last 70 years, of course, and a lot in the last 10, five years as well.

What do you think has been the theater's legacy in the community thus far?

- I think it's just important to note that we are a growing community, and we're continually growing with the Mayo Clinic, with Destination Medical Center.

There's a million people that come here every year, and I think it's very clear that the Rochester Civic Theater among other arts organizations, are essential in that in our community, and it's important that we keep supporting it and all art that is here in Rochester.

And we're proud to be a part of that staple here in Rochester.

- You mentioned it already and I know we've spoken about this before, but just the importance, especially in the times that we're living in to continue to make art, consume art, be part of the arts in theater of course.

We do have rising community transmission here in the county, which is sort of alarming that we're not out of the pandemic woods yet.

How are you all thinking about ensuring the safety of attendees at this event, but then also just encouraging people to be part of theater activities while remaining safe?

- Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, the pandemic is here.

It exists.

It's not going away.

We're not ignoring it by any means.

Masks are required for audience members there, but performers will be performing without masks on.

We're moving the event outside in a tent.

So our performances will be safer out there for this event on the 70th birthday party.

So that's another way to think about that, but yeah, we have to adapt, right?

And art is sometimes the best during crisis, and we all need to laugh, we all need to come together still.

We all need to remember that we're not alone in this, and art is a great way to make that known.

That we can all do this together and push through together.

- How can people learn more about the event?

It's coming up very soon next week and get tickets.

- Yeah, absolutely.

You can go to Rochester civic theater.org and purchase your ticket there.

Or you can call our box office.

We're so excited our box office is actually open now.

The first time since the pandemic.

So it's open Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays from 12 to two.

You can actually come right up to the window, and buy a ticket for that performance on the 70th birthday bash on August 21st.

- Wonderful.

As we're wrapping up in the last 30 seconds, any news around upcoming shows, your current shows that you want to share with the community?

- Yeah, absolutely.

We did have just have auditions for the first show of our season, which is "Always Patsy Cline."

So that will be the first show that we open on September 16th.

So season tickets will be available on August 21st that evening, and it's starring Laurie Hummers and Melissa Adams Goyle.

Really excited to start that off.

- Wonderful.

Thank you so much, Misha.

Congratulations on 70 years for the theater, and we hope to have you back on again soon.

- Thank you so much for having me.

(upbeat funky music) - Be sure to stick around.

We have much more coming your way on "R Town."

We check out an installation of Art4Trails, and learn about the new Southeast Regional Crisis Center.

But at first, we learn all about how Sylwia Oliver came to Rochester in this week's R Culture segment.

- I was born in a small little town on the Northwest of Poland, but then my parents moved to Warsaw, which is the capital of Poland.

And that sort of prompted a little bit.

I was a teenager back then.

I actually do enjoy something like very cleansing about moving places.

And not maybe starting from the beginning, but just having this fresh start and just not knowing anyone, it almost like woke something adventurous in me.

My name is Sylwia Bujak Oliver.

- [Interviewer] And where do you live?

- Currently in Rochester, Minnesota.

This is number one question, where are you from?

Whenever people want to know my accent.

They're obviously too polite to ask me where I'm originally from.

So I'm like, Rochester.

I live in Rochester.

(laughs) The whole big thing, and I'm sure it's currently still happening, it's to travel.

You know, you don't have your family yet, you don't have your kids.

My parents were always like very adventurous and saying, go, you're young, yes come back, we're always here for you, but you need to travel.

The whole discussion was basically, you know, what can I do and how to get out of Poland.

And that's why I decided to move to Northern Ireland.

And I actually met my husband there.

You don't want to like start a new relationship and just decide to leave your home country.

So obviously, I stayed.

I had the baby there, Arianna, who's not so little anymore.

(laughs) And at some stage, you know, my husband, he actually went to San Diego and met his team.

They're on some type of conference at Mayo, and he asked me what would I think about living in the United States.

My first thought was is he absolutely insane?

I am already extremely homesick.

You know, I see my parents four times a year.

Let's just go even further.

That sounds like an amazing idea.

(laughs) But the more we talk about it, and you know, about starting fresh and just trying to be adventurous, you know, and Arianna was one year old.

And I knew, when I move to the states, obviously my husband went for an interview to Mayo Clinic and he was successful.

They offered him a job.

But the big discussion was I'm gonna be stay at home mom, which was really frightening for me, but also almost liberating as well.

Because again, I'm at home with this little baby.

I waited for my green card about four and a half years.

There was a lot of like bad luck in that.

Somebody, oh, (indistinct) My husband got promoted.

So that was putting sort of our green card process, or my green card process lower and lower in the little line.

So I volunteered for Rochester Area Family Y.

And then whenever I was able finally to work, my husband was saying, you've been unemployed for four and a half years.

Time to find yourself a job.

(laughs) If you are independent person, I'm not gonna even say woman, but independent person who, you know, I earn my own living.

You know, this is my money.

And just solely rely on my husband, being here and just asking, you know, him, and obviously he was very generous, but just asking him for everything and being not able to support yourself, I think it's, you know, it is a traumatizing thing.

So I applied to be a fitness instructor slash personal trainer.

I was so adamant.

I just want to work few hours when my daughter is at school.

Absolutely no full time.

You know, I know that the work-life balance, I learned my lesson.

I'm gonna be very smart about it.

Yeah, and now we are like five years later, here I am working full time.

(laughs) I think the weather in Minnesota tricked my husband, 'cause whenever he arrived, he arrived for an interview in Mayo clinic it was March.

He said, oh it's so beautiful there.

Everybody just wears short sleeves.

It was beautiful weather.

Next year, when we moved here, it was still snowing in May.

And I remember like asking him because I watch the news.

Spring started in Siberia.

You know, I'm like, yeah, we just had this snow storm here in Minnesota.

(laughs) So yeah, that's how we ended up in America.

- [Female Announcer] For more information about this story and other "R Town" features, connect with us on Facebook, Twitter @KSMQ#RTown or ksmq.org/rtown.

(upbeat cool music) - Hello, I'm Danielle Teal, your moderator for R Town The Spotlight.

This segment covers organizations, events, and happenings across Rochester.

We'd like to thank 125 Live for hosting and lining up our guests.

And we're really grateful to have Steven Schmidt from the Rochester Civic Music as our guest today.

Hello, Steven.

- Hello, Danielle.

- Well, welcome aboard the spotlight.

- [Steven] Thank you very much.

- Now, can you share a little bit of background about yourself and what Rochester Civic Music offers.

- Rochester Civic Music is a city, it's a municipal music department, and I'm in my 33rd years as director and we offer- - 33 years?

- [Steven] 33 years.

- Congratulations.

That's phenomenal.

- I'm coming up on retirement, and so we're gonna go out with a bang because this summer is the 29th season rebooted.

It's down by the Riverside because of COVID, and this coming Sunday night, we'll be featuring 38 Special in the park.

Things get started at about seven o'clock.

But we are expecting a big crowd that night.

So if the weather's good, come on out early and stay late and enjoy the great music.

Great Southern rock.

- And you know Steven, down by the riverside, it has been such a popular event and venue.

Lots of people show up, they bring their picnic, all that good stuff.

It's a great family affair.

How has this event been impacted by the pandemic and the attendance this year?

- Attendance has been down a little bit because people are being extra cautious.

I think the most challenging part of putting this season together was working with the artists, and making good on the commitments that we made to the artists two years ago.

Making sure that we were able to then bring them back this year.

But attendance has been down a bit, but that's to be expected.

Folks who come, they've been experiencing a broad range of events in any number of genres.

- Well, we do know that you have other things in the pipeline, and can you share a little bit about that?

- Right, we have coming up as well, this summer, our forward neighborhood park concerts.

Now these are sort of like down by the riverside like, and they take place in various community parks across the city.

And so each Wednesday now for the next four Wednesdays beginning on August 18th, we'll be featuring a broad range of music from Tex Mex (indistinct) to an Americana singer songwriter, to an up and coming local blues artist who's actually got now some national cred.

So you can find out more about all of these concerts by going to rochestermn.gov/civic music, and the schedule of all of our events is located there.

- What an awesome offering in the community.

Thank you so much, Steven, for sharing more about that.

- Thank you very much for the opportunity to visit with you.

(upbeat quirky music) - Hey, this is Michael LoJack with your "R Town Rundown."

And here I am again in the office.

And that was great being out with my colleagues for a while, but COVID-19 still has some more cards to play.

So my sincere thank you to everybody who's taking this pandemic seriously, looking out for your vulnerable neighbors, getting your vaccine, masking up when appropriate.

Thanks for taking this seriously.

I look forward to being out there more and more as this virus gets behind us, but we still have a ways to go.

The city parks department announced that the urban forest master plan is nearing completion.

And part of that, they're proposing planting 6,000 trees per year for the next 14 years.

According to my Cohasset elementary school mathematics, that's about 84,000 trees.

That's gonna take our city tree canopy from about 28% to about 35%.

40-45% is considered the gold standard.

So this is a pretty outstanding start on that.

We know we're losing a lot of trees from Emerald ash borer.

We know that trees do a lot of great things.

They promote activity, they make neighborhoods more livable, they cool the streets, they clean the air.

Everybody loves the treeline boulevards in their neighborhood, and we're gonna have more of them because of this investment.

Additionally, a lot of cool events coming up.

The civic theater will be having their annual bash on August 21st at 6:00 PM.

You can get tickets at the link below, come out and support local art, and importantly learn what's in store for the next season.

Additionally, I've never been to a pickup truck opera before, but we get that opportunity this weekend on August 14th at 2:00 PM at Mayo Park.

You got the opportunity to go and watch pickup truck opera.

I would not miss out on that because I don't know when we're gonna see another one.

And finally, down by the riverside this weekend, 38 Special on Fred the Bear is opening.

Another opportunity to get out and enjoy the summer nights in the city in a good clean outdoor environment.

Thank you so much for watching.

That's just a little bit of what's going on in Rochester.

(upbeat bluesy fusion guitar music) - My name is Eric Anderson.

I'm an artist and writer here in Rochester, Minnesota.

- My name is Zoe Cinel.

I'm an artist and curator at the Rochester center.

So Eric and I got together in fall 2020 thanks to a call by Art4Trails.

To create permanent installation along one of the trails here in Rochester.

And we started having conversations about home and belonging because Eric is a transplant, and I'm an immigrant and we have both been living in Minnesota for a few years now, but like still trying to figure out how to make this place feel like home.

So there's several components.

This is the time capsule.

Some things like flowers and smell that when you move away from the environment where you grow up, you miss.

- A number of these patterns come from various aspects of cultures from individuals that are represented in the community of Rochester.

To see how they consider home.

And, you know, elements, whether it be a small thing from a quilt, part of a flag.

- This is a pattern from Japan.

This is from, I think it was from Turkey.

This one is from Italy.

We're kind of trying to find different objects that belong to interiors of homes, such as this clothing rack or this fun bathroom object, and this other fun bathroom object, or our funny little bird church.

- And we have the roof there.

So it really is a physically deconstructed idea of a home, where if you pick this up and stuck it right on top, you'd just need two more walls and you have a house.

(upbeat alternative music) - So more than 500,000 adults in Minnesota have a mental illness, and only 48% receive treatment.

Providing quality mental health care in our Southwest Minnesota region has actually been a really growing concern.

The new Southeast Regional Crisis Center, SERCC, has just opened.

And here to tell us more about the crisis center is executive director, Nicole Mucheck.

Welcome to R Town, Nicole.

- Yes, thank you for having me.

- So to start us off, can you just tell us a little bit about what the Southeast Regional Crisis Center is, and what are the specific needs that it's seeking to address?

- Yeah, so the Southeast Regional Crisis Center offers a variety of services for individuals seeking to access mental health services when they are in a crisis.

So with our services, we offer crisis response services in a clinic setting that we can work with individuals who are presenting in our clinic 24/7, with mental health practitioners and professionals to be able to offer responsive services to individuals who are in a mental health crisis.

With those services, we offer assessments and screening tools to be able to assess the individual's needs when they present to the clinic.

Through that process, we're able to help them hopefully return to their baseline level of functioning, and return to the community faster.

If we're unable to help that individual return to their baseline level in the period of time that we have in our clinic setting, we also have that ability to help them get to a higher level of care, or stay in our care at the crisis center utilizing our residential facilities.

So we have residential beds for adults 18 and older, and for youth ages 10 to 18.

And these are crisis stabilization beds that are accessible to the 10 Southeast Minnesota counties, and available for up to 10 days.

So we're really looking to help the individuals stabilize, help them create a plan, and get access to resources back in their community of residents, and then work with that individual to hopefully return to that community of residents feeling more supported with services.

Part of that process is also that we offer what is called stabilization services, and we work with our three mobile response hubs that are already in existence across the 10 counties.

Zumbro Valley Health Center, South Central Human Relations Center, and Hiawatha Valley Mental Health Center.

And we work with those agencies to provide stabilization back out in the community of residents for up to 45 days.

Really providing that care coordination, working with individuals on ongoing consultation and support in that transition back to their community of residents.

The other piece that SERCC helps bridge the gap if you will, is that our clinic setting is not just for that mobile response service, but we also assist in bridging services to get you to that outside appointment.

So we work with psychiatrists through Mayo.

We also have in kind peer support specialists through NAMI to be able to offer peer support at SERCC, but also out in their community.

And then we've also been able to help bridge the gap for individuals now that we've been open officially two weeks.

With the ability to establish a DA, that will then, a diagnostic assessment, which will then help them gain access to services in their outpatient setting, and hopefully get into services faster.

So we're really trying to help alleviate some of that burden, not just on the individual, but also on the system by being able to create those links and help individuals establish services faster in their community of residents.

- Wonderful.

Thank you so much, Nicole.

It really sounds like the focus on stabilization, and that sort of that supportive return back to the community and that connection.

That's so important to be able to keep them and have that sustainable recovery.

So you mentioned mental health crisis.

Can you just talk a little bit about what that means?

Kind of what falls under sort of a mental health crisis, and provide some examples?

- Yeah, so I think many people when they think of a mental health crisis, they're really thinking about large or maybe quick changes in someone's behavior or attitudes.

Things that are very visible, right?

Somebody who's maybe being aggressive or starts having hallucinations, whether that's auditory or visual.

I think that's what a lot of individuals might think of when they think of somebody in a crisis, right?

But really, individuals might be in a crisis if they're experiencing some bouts of depression or anxiety that are getting in the way of them being active participants in their everyday life.

They feel themselves withdrawing from things that they used to enjoy.

Those things we would love to work with people preemptively before it becomes a full blown crisis episode, where someone's experiencing thoughts of suicide or, you know, acting out aggressively.

If we can help individuals in some of those preemptive ways, I think it would be very beneficial to them as well as to us in the process of really being able to help identify those needs early on.

So we're there for those individuals who are experiencing a more extreme crisis, and those individuals that are just having some anxiety and depression.

We know right now with COVID, and as things are kind of increasing with COVID and the fact that things are shutting down, masks have to be worn again, that is going to cause some anxiety.

And that ability to know that you have a place that you can turn to 24/7 to receive help, we are that place for Southeast Minnesota, and that individuals can walk in to receive an assessment anytime.

- So this is actually, correct me if I'm wrong, it's the first center to be completed under a sort of group of legislation for these types of centers in the state.

Can you just talk a little bit about the legislation and the funding that the founding of the crisis center that made it possible for the founding of the center?

- Yes, so this is the first that was able to be established under that funding that you referenced.

It was also a collaboration of multiple entities that came together to make that happen.

So you not only had Senator Dave Senjem who was at the helm really working to push the legislation forward, but you also had Mayo Clinic, Olmsted Medical Center, you had Olmsted county, the other 10 counties across the Southeast Minnesota coming together to really create what is the crisis center today.

- Well, thank you so much, Nicole.

Congratulations on the opening of SERCC a couple of weeks ago, and we will keep in touch with you.

Thanks for joining us today.

- Thanks for having me.

- And thank you for joining us today.

For more wonderful content produced right here in Rochester, please check out our Facebook and Twitter at #RTown.

Be well and stay safe, and we'll see you next time on "RTown," The show about Rochester.

(upbeat uplifting music) ♪ We are here ♪ ♪ 'Cause our soul is (indistinct) ♪ ♪ There lies much more ♪ ♪ If we live it up ♪ (upbeat music) - [Announcer] Funding for this program is provided in part by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund, and the citizens of Minnesota.