Stage Spotlight A Sight For Sore Eyes One Year Into Coronavirus

BEVERLY, MA — The countdown was well underway for a day that never arrived.

It was March 13, 2020, and the Cabot Street Cinema Theater of Beverly's annual St. Patrick's Day Sojourn with Brian O'Donovan was scheduled for two days later that Sunday at 3 p.m. The yearly tradition at the historic theater was to kick off a series of spring and summer events all leading up to the centennial gala in December.

Six years after nearly shutting down permanently, the afternoon of festive Irish folk songs appeared an ideal soundtrack to the start of nine months of celebrating the landmark's resilience.

"That was a show we had done the last five years," Cabot Executive Director Casey Soward told Patch. "That was going to be the 15th.

"But we shut down on the 13th."

The shutdown at the onset of the coronavirus health crisis that was to be three weeks has lasted a full year for many theaters and performing arts venues that furloughed employees, canceled performances and largely turned out the lights that had long breathed life into the creative community.

"If you are a musician this has been devastating," Soward said. "This is their identity. They haven't been able to do that for a year. The mental health challenges that this has put upon creative folks have been very hard. If you know any of them, really try to sympathize with them and support them."

The Cabot's story is similar to the tales of suspended anticipation at venues throughout the state, including the Reagle Musical Theatre in Waltham where the annual "A Toast To The Irish" was also set for the weekend of the shutdown in its auditorium at Waltham High School.

"We had the final dress rehearsal 48 hours before the show was supposed to open," Susan Conkey, president of the Reagle Musical Theatre Board of Directors, told Patch. "Then we got word from the school that we had to cancel the show. We had sold around 1,000 tickets and we had to notify everybody.

"We asked people to consider taking a credit and we got a fairly good response. A number did donate (the cost of the) ticket back to us. That was really helpful."

When it soon became apparent the shutdown was going to last much longer than three weeks for the industry that relies on large crowds and a stage full of performers, venues like the Cabot and Reagle Musical Theatre got creative.

The Cabot began livestreaming movies and shows with tickets or a suggested donation requested for access. In the summer, the Cabot held the "Porch Sessions" at Hale Farm in Beverly were 40 or so fortunate fans were able to see renowned acts such as Livingston Taylor, Tom Rush and Jon Butcher in a very intimate setting.

The Reagle Theater ran virtual workshops in April and July as well as an outdoor Cabaret show at Waltham High in October with a 32-person audience. The theater has also produced virtual performances like this year's "A Toast To The Irish" that will go online Saturday on the one-year "anniversary" of the shutdown and remain live through March 20.

Conkey said most of her small staff has been furloughed or had hours cut, while the theater worked out a payment plan with the school for the fees and expenses it is responsible for in a typical year.

She said several of the recurring performers have been kind in offering to volunteer their time to help any way they can despite being hurting themselves.

"It's very difficult," she said. "Aside from the financial aspect, which is significant, those people were in this business because they want to perform. It's a passion. It's in their hearts.

"That's been taken away. That's a big hurdle and a challenge for them."

State Sen. Ed Kennedy (D-Lowell) has sponsored a bill to create a $200 million COVID relief and stabilization fund for the cultural sector. The "Act to Rebuild the Commonwealth's Cultural Future" would establish the Massachusetts Cultural Economy COVID-19 Recovery Fund, to be administered by Mass Cultural Council.

The fund would deliver relief and stabilization grants to cultural organizations, both nonprofit and for-profit, as well as individual creative workers, in need.

"The Commonwealth's economy cannot bounce back from the devastating impacts of this pandemic until our cultural sector is authorized to safely reengage with the public and fully resume its once-booming activity," Michael J. Bobbitt, Executive Director of Mass Cultural Council, said in a statement supporting the bill. "Robust public investment is urgently needed to catalyze long-term recovery efforts to stabilize our sector. This will have a tremendous effect on the overall state economy."

US Labor Department data shows the arts, entertainment and recreation industry lost 800,000 jobs in the past year.

Soward said the Cabot is lucky to be in a better situation than many venues through its endowment and ongoing sponsors. Some of the downtime has been used on massive renovations that include redoing the lobby and putting in an elevator.

While there has been no audience for a year, the Cabot stage has been the filming site of some streamed performances, including this year's St. Patrick's Day Sojourn with Brian O'Donovan, set to debut Sunday night at 7:30.

The hope is that the completion of construction in April or May will coincide with eased restrictions that open the theater up to movies or even make indoor performances viable soon thereafter.

"We are optimistic potentially later in the year we can get back to indoor concerts," Soward said. "You can really do this stuff safely inside of a large theater. We are confident once we can do it, we can do it in a safe way."

Soward said in the meantime the Cabot plans to host The Porch Sessions at Hale Farm again this summer with the space reconfigured to allow 100 people instead of 40, while some of the advances the theater has made with digitally delivering performances will likely be an ongoing part of the catalog.

"We're trying to be prepared for everything," he said. "Seeing how people are about going back to movies will give us a lot of information about their comfort level for other events. Are they even ready to come back?

"If this is a little bit of a slower rollout, we've made the steps in technology where people can still watch from their couch. You would be naïve if you don't think some of these changes (in preferred viewing habits) won't be there permanently."

Conkey is optimistic as well with a tentative show booked for May that she said could be indoors if allowed, and plans for a live summer program.

"People want to be indoors for a show," she said. "They want to see people up on that stage again. The outdoor events are nice. But it doesn't replace that communal feeling of seeing people on that stage and laughing or cheering along with the person next to you in the audience."

One year after the marquees went dark, and a virus robbed performers of sharing their passion and earning a living, there is renewed hope that those spotlights will shine brightly once again someday relatively soon.

"In terms of the creatives, they can't wait to get back to work," Soward said. "People can be confident that the Cabot is going to come back, be a new Cabot and be even stronger than it was before."

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(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)