Wild Rose Moon: Forward momentum
PLYMOUTH — For the past five years, the Wild Rose Moon has made its home in downtown Plymouth. The Wild Rose Moon is a non-profit promoting the importance of the implementation of the arts into the community while also highlighting the importance of the educational aspects of the arts. The director of the Wild Rose Moon is George Schricker and the assistant director is Marcia Heintzberger.
The Wild Rose Moon opened up in 2015 under Schricker and Heintzberger. Schricker and Heintzberger had gone way back, and had reconnected at an encore event after years of separation. Heintzberger had moved nearby and Schricker saw it as the perfect omen to a long partnership. Both Heintzberger and Schricker have a background in education, primarily with the implementation of art in education.
Schricker states, “We had both been very dedicated arts in education promoters. We both had worked in the schools a lot. Marcia [Heintzberger] has always been interested in dance education and I was interested in storytelling. We both did that for years, very dedicated for a long time. She [Heintzberger] has a very long background in production and I knew she was a hard worker and would work as hard as I do. After that it wasn’t hard to try to create the place.”
Although it is hard to fit The Wild Rose Moon under one umbrella, Schricker states, “What we are really doing here is we are creating a kind of school for people. It’s an informal school if you will. We both believe that the arts are a great tool of learning for people. To teach people through the arts is a powerful tool. It’s not just about becoming an artist or a professional artist of any kind it’s more about the creativity and the promoting and growth of that creativity in the community. It’s also a tool for learning about yourself. People come here and say they wish they had something like this in their community. Everyone is welcome and we hope to see the arts continue to grow. The focus is about community. Our statement, ‘arts in action in service to community,’ we believe the arts are an essential part of the health of the community, especially developing the arts.”
The concert hall was the first construction for the Wild Rose Moon, with Amanda Jo Boener beginning photo-documentation and Dan Shuppert video recording. The initial focus was to video and document the singers, dancers, and artists to promote their material and give them a boost in their career. The open mic nights were soon born, originally led by John Bahler and Tom Pike. After seeing the community’s positive response to the live music, Schricker and Heintzberger began scheduling featured performances and developed a radio show. A year after the opening of the Wild Rose Moon, a board of directors was established and the Wild Rose Moon became a memberrun not for profit that ‘promotes the performing arts and brings them to our center in historic downtown Plymouth.’ Currently the Wild Rose Moon boasts a variety of community involvement including members, volunteers, artists, and interns. The Wild Rose Moon is interested in ‘fostering the growth of a creative community.’
Soon after opening the Wild Rose Moon, Schricker and Heintzberger discussed the use of interns, not only giving young artists and entrepreneurs a chance to network, but also to get a hand in early in this niche of the world. Interns from Ancilla, Plymouth High School, and Indiana University soon flooded the doors of The Wild Rose Moon. There is an intern involved in every arm of the space, from writing the radio show scripts to honing their editing skills at one of the new workspaces in the basement. The new workspaces were put in just this month, with a PC system and a MAC system set up for interns and partners of The Wild Rose Moon to edit and produce original works and video feed of the events hosted at the Moon.
Schricker and Heintzberger are constantly collaborating to update the