Next spring, Maren Engel will bring one of musical theater’s most iconic roles to life on a Sioux Falls stage.
Taking on the part of Maria Rainer, Engel will perform the lead role in “The Sound of Music,” a production of the Good Night Theatre Collective.
It’s a full-circle moment in the making for Engel, who first performed in a musical as a child in “The Sound of Music” on a stage in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
It also represents the next step in her journey performing with friends and former classmates since they founded the collective in 2016.
“I’m so nervous and so excited,” she said. “She’s so beloved that I want to do her justice, and it’s such a special play to me.”
Her turn on stage also is a symbol of the unique skill set Engel brings to her day job: arts coordinator for the city of Sioux Falls.
“It’s a passion for me — building up our arts and culture community in Sioux Falls,” she said.
It’s also now her profession. Engel became the first to hold the new role for the city in May.
“She’s off to a great start,” said Jeff Eckhoff, director of planning and development services, whose department includes the position. “She’s been very good at networking, she’s naturally gifted at that, and really knows the artist community.”
As Sioux Falls grows, the arts are becoming a bigger part of the community, he said. But until now, it has not been anyone in city government’s specific role to foster opportunities to bring art to all city neighborhoods.
“This is an opportunity to bring art front and center and insert her into the planning process,” Eckhoff said. “If we’re building a fire station or libraries, are there opportunities? We have sculptures we bought from SculptureWalk, and they don’t all have to be downtown. Is there an opportunity to scout a location?
He gives the relocation of “Sea Dream” from downtown to Prairie Green Golf Course in south Sioux Falls as one example.
“Those types of things take a lot of internal coordination and coordination with the artist and the different organizations, messaging to the public and the physical move,” he said. “But it’s not anybody’s job, so sometimes they get put on the shelf.”
Ivy Oland Dandar, owner of Oland Arts Consulting, served on the committee that hired Engel.
“She’s fantastic,” Dandar said. “This is one person coming in to tackle a brand-new and great big job, and she has a solid background with some nonprofit and board experience and understands how to stretch resources and develop policies and procedures, and that’s a huge amount of work before she can really be boots on the ground.”
From Augustana to arts consultant
Engel was born in Sioux Falls and moved to Oklahoma for her elementary through high school years. A heavily arts-focused high school led to her passion for music and a move back to Sioux Falls to major in vocal music at Augustana University.
“A lot of schools I looked at didn’t offer a city that had so much arts and culture already, so Sioux Falls really drew me,” she said.
After college, she spent five years working for Augustana recruiting for its arts department and learning more about administration. She then moved into development and fundraising roles at the nonprofits Breathe Bravely and the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.
“I always thought development is such a great career skill to have, and I know someday I’m going to utilize this again in the arts world, so I’d been keeping my eye out for arts positions,” she said.
That came in the form of the city’s arts coordinator, which Dandar, who works regularly with artists, calls essential to integrating more opportunities for artists, as well as providing continuity as city administrations change.
“It was a challenge not having a consistent person to approach when needs or opportunities arose, and to help us vet things or align with the right city partners,” she said. “Her reach is going to extend to parks, within city planning, public works; there are so many departments people can align with to bring the arts to life, but there wasn’t one central point of contact, and I’m thrilled we have that now.”
The role complements existing resources for the arts community, including the Sioux Falls Arts Council and Washington Pavilion Management Inc., Dandar said. Engel serves as a nonvoting member of the Arts Council.
The goal is that from City Hall, the arts now are better able to be scaled across the community.
“Downtown is sort of an easy place to get wins,” Dandar added. “But we want someone who is going to be able to reach out and work with other areas of the city that don’t traditionally have access to the arts and aren’t coming to the Pavilion or Arts Council.”
Engel takes a broad view of what the arts themselves encompass, Eckhoff added.
“What stood out about her is … it wasn’t just visual arts or performing arts. She seemed to have a really good grasps of all mediums of art, which is why we expanded this role,” Eckhoff said. “And she just seems to have the right personality and the right grasp of what the position could be.”
Vision for the future
Engel’s first few months have been spent in a wide variety of conversations across the arts community and will include attending some strategic conferences, as well as visiting communities modeling various ways to support the arts, including Tacoma, Washington, and Boise, Idaho.
“A lot of these cities have had the same growing pains artistically as Sioux Falls, so it’s nice to hear people excited about where we’re at give advice about pushing forward,” she said.
In her conversations locally, “there’s been a need for transparency, an understanding of how arts decisions are made at a city level, who makes them and why they’re made,” Engel said.
“I think there’s a real desire to have an understanding of how those processes happen, and that’s fair, and I have a lot of understanding of that. The last thing I want is for the arts community to not have clarity around how creative decisions are made or if there are opportunities for them.”
She’s also focused on standing up a new seven-person arts commission by early fall, which will complement a seven-person visual arts committee.
“I really want people to feel empowered to submit an application,” she said.
After that, it’s onto creating a strategic plan with guidance from arts advocate Janet Brown.
“That’s going to take time to think through strategy and make a plan for what needs to be tackled right away,” she said.
To learn more about the commission and applying, click here.
For Dandar, Engel’s early approach to the job has been a productive one.
“I’m overwhelmingly pleased,” she said. “We talked a lot with her in the hiring process about how there are going to be big expectations and a lot of desires and paths to take … but she said, ‘The most important thing I can do is build relationships and trust.’ And I think she’s doing a fantastic job of doing that. The hard work is coming, but that’s a great way to start.”
When she’s not in her full-time role, you’ll find Engel singing in multiple local professional choirs, on a podcast she formed with friends called “Midtown Coffee Radio Hour” or performing with “very talented piano-playing friends” accompanying her at R Wine Bar & Kitchen and other venues around town.
While she acknowledges it’s not easy to make a living as a full-time artist in Sioux Falls, “I think it could change,” she said. “I think our younger people are seeing this as a place they can create and live, and the more we do that, the more we’re going to see a need for support. They can see this as a creative community.”
She points to friends in New York City and other major cities who “are very jealous I’m busy all the time performing,” she said. “And when they come, they’re pretty amazed at the kind of arts community Sioux Falls has.”
One small step in the right direction: Engel and other actors are paid stipends for their roles in Good Night Theatre productions.
“They pay all their performers and work really hard to do that. We’re not living off it, but it’s a huge statement to say we recognize this is a workforce. And this is how I feel in my current job: Our artists are a workforce, and they give so much to our community,” she said.
“I still maintain all the aspects of myself as an artist, which is great. My career is really important to me, but I consider myself a musician and artist first and foremost.”
605 Made Night Market
Support local artists, makers and entertainers at this Saturday’s 605 Made Night Market. For a guide to the event, click below.
Here’s your guide to shopping, food, entertainment at Saturday’s 605 Made Night Market
