Fall arts season losing shows

COVID-19, storm cause cancellations, postponements

A slew of cancellations and postponements have hit arts venues around the state, just as venues were revving up for a lively fall season.

COVID-19 surges and Tropical Storm Henri put a damper on major events from single theater performances to major band tours. In just the past week:

The band Korn had to postpone six shows on its current tour with Staind, including an Aug. 20 date at the Xfinity Theatre, when singer Jonathan Davis tested positive for COVID-19. The Hartford show has been rescheduled for Oct. 2.

When then-hurricane Henri was bearing down on the state on Saturday, Sunday night’s Kiss show at the Xfinity Theatre was initially postponed just one day to Monday night, then postponed again. The new date has not yet been announced. Kiss’ “End of the Road” farewell tour began in January 2019 and went on hiatus for over a year due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The Monster Jam truck show Sunday at Hartford’s XL Center, which was slated to be the first major national tours to visit the XL Center since the COVID-19 outbreak, was canceled at the last minute due to Tropical Storm Henri.

Rock superstar Neil Young said he would not be performing, as previously announced, at the Farm Aid benefit concert in Hartford on Sept. 25. Young, a co-founder of the Farm Aid organization who has regularly performed at its annual

fundraising concerts for 35 years, posted a statement on his neilyoungarchives.com website explaining that, “I don’t want to let anybody down but still can’t shake the feeling that it might not be safe for everyone. I worry about audiences coming together in these times.” The concert is otherwise going on as planned, with Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp, Dave Matthews, Bettye Lavette, Margo Price and others. Tickets have sold out.

The Goodspeed Opera House, which has been presenting concert-style shows in a large tent in its parking lot all summer, canceled the Aug. 22 matinee of its Nina Simone musical “Little Girl Blue” because of the tropical storm but did so far enough in advance that it was able to contact ticketholders and move them to other performances.

The Aug. 22 Michael Franti & Spearhead concert at the Ridgefield Playhouse, a “Summer Gala” fundraiser for the venue, had to be moved to Aug. 23 due to Tropical Storm Henri.

Alt-rock icons Pixies, due to play just over the Connecticut border in Port Chester, New York on Sept. 10, just canceled all its September dates, including big festivals in Chicago and Milwaukee, due to COVID19 concerns.

Theaterworks Hartford, which is staging its first live show since 2020, “Walden,” outdoors in a fully constructed “tiny house” on Riverfront Recapture land along the Hartford/ Windsor border, had to cancel Sunday night’s performance, and also a Monday screening of a video of the show which was to be projected on the big screen at Dunkin’ Donuts Park. “Fortunately,” says Theaterworks director of marketing and communications Freddie Mcinerney, “the set was not damaged and we will be performing this Tuesday through Sunday’s final scheduled performance.” The outdoor “Walden,” which is also being livestreamed through Aug. 29, has served to bridge to the gap between a year of virtual Theaterworks shows and the theater’s scheduled return to live indoor performances in October.

Many of the canceled shows wouldn’t have been happening outdoors at all, where they were subject to the elements, if it were not for the coronavirus crisis. The Goodspeed and Theaterworks ordinarily would be presenting shows indoors at this time of year. Some major indoor concert venues in the state have not reopened yet, making outdoor shows the primary attractions.

The fall arts season typically starts in September or October, not just with theater, where most mainstage subscription seasons run from fall to spring, but in the music scene, when many bands like to tour when college students are back on campus. Back in late spring and early summer, when theaters tend to announce their subscription seasons and concert halls start promoting fall bookings, it seemed like a likely time for venues to reopen after many of them had been shuttered for as long as 18 months.

That once celebratory mood is now becoming subdued, subject to the same level of new coronavirus concerns around social gatherings and safety that venues had to face six months or a year ago.

Allison Stockel, executive director of the 500-seat Ridgefield Playhouse — among the first theaters in Connecticut to return to regular live performances while following applicable state and local COVID guidelines — is unfazed by the recent cancellations and postponements and says that at her venue it is basically business as usual.

“We’ve been open for about a year. You roll with the punches. When we could only do outdoors, we did outdoors. When we could do indoors at reduced capacity, we did that. We’re moving forward. We’re not canceling or rescheduling shows unless it’s the artists who need to.”

Generally, Stockel says, artists will request certain precautions rather than canceling or postponing. Upcoming Ridgefield Playhouse concerts by Pat Benatar and Suzanne Vega will require audience members to show proof of vaccination or a negative COVID test, which is not the practice for all shows at the playhouse.

“In some ways it is safer now,” Stockel says, “because we have been doing this for a year and have had all our protocols in place. We haven’t had any [COVID] cases. We figured it out a year ago.

“Yes, we have had a tough time in the last year and a half,” Stockel sums up. “But having to move a show is not an unusual thing in this business. What’s unusual is when it happens to every single show.”

Tyler Grill, co-owner of two Infinity Hall concert venues, opened the Norfolk one nearly two months ago and is still on track to reopen Infinity Hall Hartford as planned on Aug. 29 with a show by singer-songwriter Shawn Mullins. He hopes to be be booking a dozen shows a month at each venue in the fall.

“Cancellations have not been a conversation with us at all,” Grill says. “It more about following all the precautions and taking care of any requests from the artists. Backstage is kind of on lockdown. [Physical] interaction with the bands is minimal.”

Because “we have to arrange shows usually three or four months out, so we can market them,” Grill explains, he eased into reopening with mostly local and regional acts, reducing the risks of cancellations or national touring issues.

“National tours were not as available. Now they are. We will probably have another year of managing all the issues COVID presents,” Grill says. “Everybody, from the bands to the touring crews, are very in sync. People are coming out again, having a blast. I’ve personally worked in our box office for some shows because I wanted to see the reactions of the audiences. It has been very positive.”