Houston Ballet staff laid off; ‘Nutcracker’ canceled this season
Houston Ballet laid off 30 percent of its full-time staff and put its 61 dancers and more than 60 musicians on extended leave Monday until it can again perform in a theater.
After holding back layoffs through its 2019-20 season, which officially ended in late June, the company said it could no longer fend off the reality of lost revenues brought on by the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic. That means no “Nutcracker,” for even an abbreviated run, this season.
One of Houston’s longeststanding holiday entertainments, “The Nutcracker” earns about $5 million of revenue a year. That multiplies the ballet’s losses exponentially.
Dancers and orchestra members always have a layoff of a few weeks between seasons, but this year’s will extend without a specific return date. The dancers’ return, when it does happen, will be staggered for their safety, said company spokesperson Jacalyn Lawton.
Most of the staff layoffs involve production, wardrobe and artistic personnel who cannot perform their normal duties during the pandemic, although every department of the company lost at least one person, according to Lawton. Wages have been reduced for all remaining staff, with the greatest pay cuts at the top of the organization.
For now, the plan is to return to the Wortham Theater stage Dec. 4 with the annual, onenight Margaret Alkek Williams
Jubilee of Dance, and perhaps add limited performances of a “holiday special” program. While losses continue to mount, the past season’s figures are coming into focus, and they are devastating: a loss of $1.3 million in revenue from three canceled ticketed productions alone.
Executive director Jim Nelson acknowledged the difficult decisions. “Every member of our Houston Ballet family will be affected at some point during the season,” he said. “It’s paramount that we make these changes to safeguard the longevity of our organization.”
Because cuts will not be enough to keep the company intact, the board of trustees has launched a $5 million campaign to restore its artists and staff. It has raised $1 million to date, including a dollar-fordollar challenge grant from the Cullen Trust for the Performing Arts. “Even so, the pandemic presents the most significant financial challenge Houston Ballet has ever faced, and we need communitywide support to emerge from this crisis,” chief development officer Angela Lane said.
The company’s Education and Community Engagement (ECE) programs also need a lifeline now. That initiative offers 17 programs, most of which cost participants nothing. Last season the program visited 264 schools in 30 districts; provided classes for people with Parkinson’s disease and awarded $312,655 in scholarships.
For now, the Houston Ballet Foundation’s annual Nutcracker Market, which typically jams NRG Center with shoppers in early November, is still planned. Lawton said the organizers are working with NRG management to create a plan for a socially-distanced event this year.
Given the unknowns about when and how it can revive live performances, Houston Ballet’s leaders are preparing multiple scenarios for a “re-imagined” 20202021 season of alternative programs that will need to be negotiated with artists’ unions and healthcare partners.
Programs planned for the fall will not be performed as scheduled, although they might be rescheduled for 2021. That includes the “Love Letters” program that would have been Sept. 11-20 and “Mayerling,” which would have run Sept. 24-Oct. 4.
Subscribers will be offered special digital content this fall and/or rescheduled in-person performances next year. Subscribers will receive more information about these changes via email.
The digital content would likely be similar to the “Brunch with Houston Ballet” series the company devised this spring, which offered on-demand videos of 16 previously recorded ballets.
Houston Ballet has created an abundance of digital content since the pandemic shutdown began in March.
The dancers have created the content for HB at Home, a series of short videos for social media, and a Dance Talks lecture series offers live conversations with the company’s artists via Zoom.
Angela Lee, director of marketing and public relations, noted that the pandemic is not Houston Ballet’s first rodeo with adversity, given its recent history of canceled and reshuffled performances from natural disasters such as Hurricane
Harvey.
“We are considering all options for the future, from how to create a safer theater to optimizing technology for virtual experiences,” Lee said.
“We are not finished creating,” artistic director Stanton Welch said. “We’ve demonstrated that time and time again. We can and will bring high-quality art to this city through dance, whether you see it from the house of a theater or your living room couch.”