Sometimes inspiration strikes late at night, or in this case, in the early morning. Hollywood performers Kathy Selden, Don Lockwood and Cosmo Brown — played by Lily Schimmel, Landon Butler and DJ Scheele — have a laugh on an overturned couch after performing “Good Morning.”
It wouldn’t be “Singin’ in the Rain” without rain. Don Lockwood, played by senior Landon Butler, sings and skips with his umbrella as rain falls from the ceiling in the Hutchinson High School Auditorium.
If you pay a visit to the Hutchinson High School auditorium April 7-11, you may want to bring an umbrella; the forecast calls for showers.
Hutchinson theater students are presenting the 1952 musical "Singin' in the Rain,” complete with all the tap dancing and singing fans of the Gene Kelly classic will remember. And thanks to a bit of technical work, they’ll be able to perform the show’s titular song the way it was meant to be shown.
"How can you do 'Singin' in the Rain' without rain?" asked senior Landon Butler, who plays Don Lockwood, one of the lead characters. "It's pretty cool and I hope people will remember it. The lighting is cool on it, too."
"This show is dance, dance and more dance," said director Jason Olson. "Of course, one of the main calling cards is, hey, it should rain."
The show, regarded by some as one of the greatest musical films ever made, is a romantic comedy that follows Hollywood performers trying to adjust during the late 1920s switch from silent films to “talkies.”
"The humor goes along with that," Olson said. "You had former movie stars. When it was silent, they were awesome. All of a sudden they have an annoying voice."
The lighthearted play was selected because it doesn't deal with anything heavy or ask the audience to dig into a serious issue.
"We're dealing with that all the time right now," Olson said. "The idea this year was to have fun. This musical is just dumb fun. Some of the numbers make you smile because they have so much energy."
Junior Lily Schimmel, who last year played Mary Poppins, returns to the stage as Kathy Sullivan.
"Kathy is a headstrong girl who has a path and a direction and she meets this movie star and is apprehensive at first about him," she said. "And then she falls head over heels."
"Don is a silent movie actor," Butler said. "He wants to adapt to the talking picture, and has to deal with all the trials and tribulations that go along with that."
While past HHS shows have had a chorus or large-scale dance numbers, this show calls for several dances between individuals and small groups. That has made for a unique challenge, Butler and Schimmel said. The result is a peppy, upbeat show with plenty of music.
"The show is also really costume heavy," Schimmel said. "We have lots of costumes."
Senior DJ Scheele plays Cosmo Brown, Don Lockwood's lifelong friend. The goofball will do anything to get a laugh.
"I have some pretty demanding dances this year," Scheele said, "doing tricks all over the place, jumping over people, flips on ladders. That will be fun to watch."
In a school year marked by a response to COVID-19 and the safety precautions that came with it, there is no doubt the show has had to adjust in order to meet state guidance.
"It was hard in the beginning to get the ball rolling," Schimmel said. "We had to push it back from being a fall musical."
The call for masks and social distancing means the performers can't work alongside a live band as they usually would, and are instead using recorded tracks.
"That's unfortunate especially for the seniors in band," Butler said. "A few decided to join the cast to still be part of it."
Despite the challenges, the students are set to perform at 7 p.m. April 7, 8 and 10, and at 1 p.m. and 7 p.m. April 11.
Current COVID protocols allow for 250 people to attend the show, but more than likely tickets will not be available at the door in order to maintain social distancing. Anyone who would like to see the show should purchase tickets online at showtix4u.com/event-details/48912.
Like everyone in the past year, HHS theater students have had to make sacrifices and adjustments, but they’ve made the most of their present situation and are excited to be on stage.
"Even with COVID and having to do remote practices, we've got a really great show," Scheele said. "I'm proud of it."
Hutchinson City Council is moving forward with plans for $20 million in improvements to Otter and Campbell lakes. The project would be completed in phases over several years and rely on state bonding funds.
If you support preserving Otter and Campbell lakes, and providing more and better recreational opportunities, there’s good news. The Hutchinson City Council is moving forward with another step in its efforts to protect and rehabilitate the city’s water resources.
In February, members of the City Council unanimously approved an agreement with Bolton & Menk to begin work on the first phase of a multiphase improvements plan of the city’s lakes and river.
“Today and in the future we have a number of projects planned for Otter and Campbell lakes,” said Todd Hubmer, a representative of Bolton & Menk. “They include stabilizing the riverbanks on the Crow River, expanding recreational opportunities — that can be access to Campbell and Otter lakes from either fishing piers or additional canoe carry-in sites, removing sediment to restore other accessible points for different types of boating, and also to add new habitat for areas for fish to reproduce … to provide forage and protection for rearing of young species — and then replenishing top soil by removing material from Otter Lake.”
The latest step is part of a decade’s long process the city has undertaken. Back in 2007, the city replaced the dam with a rock arch rapids that reconnected the lakes with the Crow River and allows for fish to pass. Then since 2015 the city has invested in water quality projects that remove pollutants from stormwater runoff.
“The city has been doing its part to protect these lakes as resources for future generations, and also to improve recreational capabilities,” Hubmer said, “and we know those recreational capabilities have been impacted by runoff over the past 100 years or so.”
The initiatives aren’t without public support, either. In the city’s 2015 National Citizenship Survey, 48% of residents said they strongly supported the city investing in studying and improving the community’s water resources. The city heard that feedback and today it lists seeking legislative bonding support for these projects as one of its top legislative priorities.
That lobbying paid off in the most recent state bonding bill, which included $3.1 million for the first phase of the project. In total the project is expected to cost approximately $20 million.
“It’s scheduled to be phased over a number of years to allow the project to proceed in an orderly fashion,” Hubmer said, “and what the Legislature would like to see and the way that we’ve geared this is to try to get the input of sediment under control before we go in and do in-lake treatments. So this first round of money is really looking at stabilizing the streambanks along the Crow River.
“It’s also looking at preserving some wetlands that can provide critical treatment in the upstream reaches to reduce the sediment load into the Crow River and the lakes,” Hubmer continued. “And also constructing a forebay that’s at the mouth of the Crow River entering Otter Lake to collect sediment in a location where we can monitor it and remove it easily from a maintenance standpoint.”
What’s a forebay?
A forebay, an artificial pool of water in front of a larger body of water, is a major part of the first phase of this project.
“It’s really going to focus on the area where the Crow River dumps into Otter Lake and that delta that’s formed there,” Hubmer said. “So the goal is to remove a lot of that sediment that’s been deposited there and then place a filtration — like a rock arch of some sort — that will allow water to pass through and around it and … allow sediment to drop out into a deeper pool that we can actually get in and manage that and pull material out on a regular basis so that it will protect the future investments that will be made inside Otter and Campbell lakes.”
Due to the river also being recognized as a state water trail, any changes will be made with input from the Department of Natural Resources so as not to disrupt boating and access.
With the agreement approved back in February, the city will pay up to $92,000 to Bolton & Menk for engineering services such as acquiring permits; preparing a preliminary design for the entire project with input from residents, stakeholders and regulators; and working with soil and water conservation districts to help with water quality and protective measures beyond the boundaries of Hutchinson. That money comes from the $3.1 million in bonding the city received.
“Once we do that, then we can come back and talk about the individual items the city wishes to move forward with in probably late fall of 2021 or next spring in 2022,” Hubmer said.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz on Friday announced the opening of the coronavirus vaccination floodgates — and a torrent of anxious Minnesotans rushed in.
Beginning Tuesday, every Minnesota resident age 16 or older was eligible to receive a vaccine, Walz announced in a morning address. “This is the light at the end of the tunnel,” he said.
But being eligible and actually getting the vaccine are two different things, as waves of Minnesotans quickly discovered as they scrambled to secure appointments that vanished as soon as they appeared.
This is to be expected, state and private health care leaders cautioned — as did regular people who have become schooled in prior vaccine rollouts. The universe of those about to be eligible — 4.4 million people — now vastly exceeds the number of doses the state has been allocated each week by the federal government — 330,000 weekly on average over the past three weeks.
TEMPORARY RUSH
But it should be temporary, those familiar with the system said, as they anticipate an increase in the state’s weekly vaccine allotment that will amount to around 424,000 doses delivered to Minnesota in early April.
“In the next four to six weeks, a lot of this is going to flatten out,” said Dr. Abraham Jacob, chief quality officer for M Health Fairview, who joined Walz and state Health Commissioner Jan Malcolm in making the announcement. “Then we’re going to be up here talking about vaccine hesitancy.”
Even sooner than that, things will make more sense, said Maura Caldwell of Minneapolis, who on Feb. 1 started the Facebook group “Minneapolis Vaccine Hunters (helping all of MN)” and an associated website MNVaccineHunters.com that seek to connect people with vaccine options.
“The difference between today and two weeks from now is going to be huge,” said Caldwell, who, along with a team of fellow volunteers, has been helping anyone who asks to navigate the realm of vaccine hunting. “Even a few days from now, the knowledge you’ll have from talking to your friends and doing a little research will be amazing. It won’t be such a mystery.”
In the meantime, however, officials effectively conceded that the nation’s decentralized health care system would indeed yield a sense of a free-for-all for many seeking the vaccines, with hospitals and doctors often employing different criteria than pharmacies and government-sponsored sites.
And then there are tricky footnotes to know. For example, only the Pfizer vaccine is approved for people as young as 16, Jacob said. The Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines are only approved for those 18 or older.
WHAT PROVIDERS ARE DOING
Health care providers — doctors, hospitals and clinics — have been directed to still prioritize those currently at the front of the line, a group that includes those 65 or older, or those with certain underlying health conditions, or those in certain frontline professions.
“My 16-year-old healthy daughter ran up to me and said, ‘Can I get vaccinated March 30?’ and I said, ‘Not by my health system,’” Jacob said Friday.
Several major providers, including HealthPartners and Allina Health, released public statements Friday emphasizing that they are still only scheduling vaccinations for those high-risk categories. Within those categories, they’re drawing names at random until all their slots are full.
Advice: If you have a primary care doctor or specialist, or an online account such as MyChart, make sure you’re signed up with that network. Usually, this just involves checking — or setting up — an online account. (Definitely check online first; the phone lines might be busy, and many doctors are asking the masses not to call without checking online first.)
But even though Walz and Malcolm said people in those currently eligible groups remain at the front of the line, they acknowledged that retail pharmacies, such as those inside CVS, Walgreens, Cub Foods, WalMart and a host of other chains, are often unable to prioritize those seeking vaccinations. They simply don’t have the medical records to do so, they said.
WHAT PHARMACIES ARE DOING
As such, retail pharmacies are generally on a first-come, first-served situation — for just about everyone right now for appointments starting Tuesday.
This is the part that can feel like the Wild West, and a cottage industry has cropped up seeking to understand and help others figure out how to navigate all the various websites, some of which update at regular (and often middle-of-the-night) hours, while others don’t seem to be consistent.
“Walmart seems to open new appointments consistently at midnight, but that does not mean that some appointments won’t show up any time of day,” Caldwell said. “CVS and Walgreens are usually the middle of night, but some, we just haven’t been able to figure out. Some are consistent and some are not.”
One website, Dr. B — HiDrB.com — actually allows people to try to get notified if a local vaccine site has extra vaccines at the end of a day or week.
In general, some dedicated time on a computer will be required to book an appointment at a pharmacy, but Caldwell suggests that if you can be a bit patient, regularly checking one or two local pharmacies — instead of scrambling to check all over the state — might make things simpler.
WHAT GOVERNMENT IS DOING
The state of Minnesota is trying to provide a safety net for those who fall through the cracks of the other vaccine-offering sectors. They offer vaccines at mass-vaccination and community vaccination sites, often partnering with local health departments or businesses.
For example, on Tuesday, the state and the Minnesota Vikings co-hosted a “pop-up” vaccination event at Twin Cities Orthopedics Performance Center — the Vikings training facility — in Eagan.
The heart of the system is known as the “Vaccine Connector” — mn.gov/covid19/vaccine/connector. The key is to register. If all else fails, sooner or later, this system will be used to contact you and offer a vaccine. Slots for the Eagan pop-up, for example, will be filled by the state contacting people who have registered via the Vaccine Connector.
The website offers a map of other locations that offer vaccines, and there’s a phone line, 833-431-2053, staffed 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday through Friday.
‘EVERYONE … CALM DOWN’
Walz himself marveled at the speed at which vaccines were developed and, after a rocky start, how rapidly they’re being distributed.
Minnesota has vaccinated 80% of Minnesotans ages 65 or older — a key milestone that Walz and Malcolm said allowed them to widen eligibility as they try to balance supply and demand as a more contagious variant of the coronavirus gains traction in the state.
“This didn’t seem possible a year ago,” Walz said.
But with it carries a sudden anxiety, said Caldwell, whose Facebook group had grown by some 8,000 people through the day Friday.
“They are eager to learn and suddenly feeling like there’s pressure to get the vaccine,” she said.
But Caldwell, a former teacher who has no professional medical background but learned to navigate the medical system caring for a child with specific medical needs, says she’s seen this all before — and so have others.
“Everyone needs to just calm down,” she counseled. “Everyone before you has been through this, too.”
Her most basic advice, she said: Check out her Facebook group and take your time doing a little research. But also, she said, talk to someone — a friend or relative — who’s been vaccinated. Ask them what worked for them.
“I’ve seen every one of these rollouts, from adding seniors to adding teachers to adding people with high BMI,” she said. “Every time this has opened up, I feel like we spend a few days just bringing everybody down. It’s amazing what two weeks does.
“If you wait two weeks it will be such a different world,” she added. “We’ve gone 54 weeks without a vaccine and if you can wait another 10 days it will be much easier.”
