Washington Center hosts virtual gala to stay afloat until the curtain can rise again
Thursday evening, the Washington Center for the Performing Arts will host its first event since its doors closed in mid-March: a virtual Center Stage Gala.
The fundraiser, streaming free on YouTube, looks likely to be the only event the theater will produce for some time.
Though it happens every year, the fundraiser is more important than ever right now, said Jill Barnes, the center’s executive director.
“It’s a tough time right now to be in the live performing arts,” Barnes told The Olympian. “Sixty-one percent of our income is earned income from ticket sales and rentals and concessions, and that evaporated.
“During the pandemic, the arts have been there for everybody — through books and music and movies and artists streaming free content — and now we really need everyone to be there for the arts.”
Things are looking perhaps more uncertain than ever for theaters in Washington. Last week, Gov. Jay Inslee banned all live entertainment and reduced the maximum size of gatherings from 50 people to 10 in counties that are in Phase 3 of his Safe Start reopening plan.
Until that change was announced last week, center staff had been working on hosting a few small events next month while waiting to hear from the governor’s office about the safe reopening plan it developed with dozens of theaters across the state.
Now, those plans are on hold indefinitely.
“At this point, our plan is to have plans,” Barnes said, “so that as soon as we’re able to do anything, we can roll it out. There is no crystal ball.”
She’s waiting to announce the 2020-21 season, which she described as “amazing.” In most years, the season is announced in June.
“I have some information I could announce,” she said, “but I would like to wait until we’re a little further along in the phased reopening. We were in Phase 3, and now it feels like we’re in phase 2.5.”
Tacoma Arts Live, which like the Washington Center features a mix of local shows and national touring acts, announced its season Saturday, July 18, with shows scheduled to begin in November. Rather than traditional subscriptions, the theater group is selling flex passes that offer discounted prices and early access to tickets.
“We realize the future of in-person events is unclear,” said an email from Arts Live, which also notes that events might need to be rescheduled.
Indeed, some of the shows in Tacoma Arts Live’s 2020-21 season were originally scheduled for last season, and all of the upcoming events on the Washington Center’s calendar have been rescheduled, too — some of them multiple times.
All of that uncertainty is the reason Barnes isn’t ready to talk about what might be next. Instead, the center’s focus is on making it through the extended closure so it can once again welcome audiences and the 20-plus community groups that perform on its stages.
“If you are a kid in this county, you are going to pass through those doors at some point,” said Ann Flannigan, who’s on the center’s board and emcees the gala. “If you are a kid in the arts, you’re probably going to dance there or play in the student orchestra, and there’s Junior Programs, which brings all of the elementary school kids through a couple of times a year to watch plays and get exposed to what live performance is like.
“The magic and the alchemy of the center is that it gets to be a home for burgeoning artists and local audiences, and then there’s great national-caliber stuff, too.”
Flannigan was last in the spotlight in Harlequin Productions’ “The Highest Tide,” one of the last shows to be seen on a local stage, but she said that what she misses more than acting is watching live performances.
“What I mourn for is being an audience member,” she told The Olympian. “I’m wondering when I can join hundreds of others in the seats and have a communal arts experience.
“These art forms are thousands and thousands of years old,” Flannigan said. “They will be back. We will gather and tell stories again and listen to music again in groups. We just don’t know when it will be.”
“We’re hungry to resume operations when it’s safe to do so,” Barnes added. “We’re trying to keep our head above water so we can do that.”
Center Stage Virtual Gala
- What: The Washington Center for the Performing Arts takes its annual fundraiser online with a live gala broadcast and a silent auction.
- When: 7 to 8:30 p.m. Thursday, July 23
- Where: YouTube (http://youtu.be/yf-h_wgxnNc)
- Tickets: Free, with donations encouraged
- More information: http://washingtoncenter.org/event/2020-center-stage-awards-gala/
- Auction: Bidding on the auction is open through 9 p.m. Thursday, July 23.