During the pandemic, the performing arts sector has gone through its share of challenges as it tried to adhere to the state and the county’s COVID regulations while trying to accommodate an audience.
Often, live entertainment had to grapple with how to keep revenue streams coming in even as it received non-essential status by state and county officials.
The Younes and Soraya Nazarian Center for the Performing Arts at California State University – Northridge, No. 2 on the Business Journal’s list of Performing Arts Venues, seats 1,682 people. Thor Steingraber, executive and artistic director of the Soraya, said the theater had to comply with public health mandates and as a result came back after a year and a half of closure in starts and stops.
“It’s very disruptive to everybody audiences and artists,” Steingraber said.
After a year and a half of the theater being closed, “we opened (last) October. Then unfortunately we shut down in January for Omicron and we opened again Feb. 4 with Winton Marsalis,” Steingraber said.
The closures and re-openings have added complications to an operation that books artists from around the world.
“While there are supply chain issues in other industries, we have artists who haven’t performed in two years,” Steingraber said. “You cannot underestimate the impacts of the pandemic on artists. While our intentions have been to keep in line with pre-pandemic programming, it hasn’t been easy.”
With the arts, in terms of being ready to reopen per public health officials’ conclusions, “you can’t just turn on the spicket,”’ Steingraber explained. “We generally program a year in advance because of artists’ schedules.”
Steingraber said the estimates on Omicron diminishing by late January felt safe enough for the theater to reopen Feb. 4. However, there was also a segment of the audience that still feels unsure about attending in person.
“We offered all of our programs first two weeks of February both in person and online,”’ Steingraber said. “For the Marsalis concert, we held it live and we streamed it on a Vimeo channel (at a lower price level).”
Regarding people returning, “it’s inconsistent, to be honest,” Steingraber said. “There are good weeks and bad weeks.”
‘Cautiously optimistic’
Cultural Affairs Director Jonathan Serret at the Fred Kavli Theatre at Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza, No. 1 on the Business Journal’s list, discussed a different but no less harrowing trajectory at his venue, which seats 1,800.
“In the midst of the pandemic, we closed March 13, 2020 and reopened July 9, 2021,”’ Ser ret said. “During the closure, we did some outdoor things, drive-in events at a couple of different locations. We hosted T.O. Arts Scenes at the Greens at Los Robles Golf Course.”
The Kavli reopened last July with a performance by Melissa Manchester that seated a quarter of the capacity audience to allow for distancing. The venue has stayed open ever since.
Serret said that the early shows “were embraced by those who were here. The reality is there are still people not comfortable going to see live shows. We’re really trying to build up the comfort level and getting people comfortable with the idea of going back again, especially with larger groups.”
In September, the regular season started again. The new season started off strong with Boz Scaggs attracting 1,500 people.
Then December brought “diminishing trends” because of the Omicron variant, Serret said.
Attendance improved as Omicron began to wane. January saw REO Speedwagon play the Kavli, followed in February by Kenny G and by Chicago, which sold out.
“It’s been a challenge but we’ve worked through that challenge,” Serret said. “It’s taken a particular toll on staffing. For patrons, they’ve kind of gotten used to it. …
We wanted to do whatever we could do to comply because we wanted to stay open.”
From July through Dec 2021, the Kavli had 75 performances, in excess of 36,000 people.
“Not as strong as before the pandemic but given the circumstances of what we had to deal with, it’s a great thing,” Serret said.
As of March 1, masking was lifted. With the reduced number of cases and the fact that kids can be vaccinated at younger ages, Serret believes attendance should continue to improve moving forward with such March events as the “Hamilton” spoof “Spamilton,” the family friendly “Dinosuar World Live” and “Live from Laurel Canyon.”
“I’m cautiously optimistic about the future barring any surges we’d have to contend with,” Serret said.
In retrospect, Steingraber lamented how public officials have made the arts a secondary experience to bars, restaurants and sporting events in terms of safe opening.
“I really worry what we’re saying about opening up the arts last,” he said. “Recovery is going to be a longtime proposition.”