For a lot of people and businesses, things might be getting back to relative normal after the pandemic upended the world in 2020. But that’s not the case for some local theaters.

The New London-based Flock Theatre, the Chestnut Street Playhouse in Norwich and Artreach in Norwich have all had to cancel or postpone shows over the past few months because of COVID-19 cases that emerged among their cast and crew.

Flock was hit the hardest. It had two productions scheduled during 2022: “Peer Gynt” in the summer and Eugene O’Neill’s “The Hairy Ape” in the fall.

“Peer Gynt” was set for eight performances during a two-week period in June and July. All of them were nixed, though Flock managed to reschedule and stage the show over one weekend in September.

“The Hairy Ape” was likewise aiming for eight performances between Oct. 13 and 23. Then, about a week before the opening, one actor came into contact with someone who ended up with COVID-19. The actor tested negative and masked up, but eventually tested positive. His understudy took over, and everyone involved in “The Hairy Ape” began testing for COVID-19. By opening night, the director was also positive, and two others involved in the production tested positive the following day.

“It fell like dominos from there,” said Derron Wood, founder and principal artistic director of Flock who directed “The Hairy Ape.”

The only two performers who escaped the disease had gotten it during the summer when they were part of the cast of “Peer Gynt.”

Flock got permission from the venue where it was going to perform “The Hairy Ape” — the B.P. Learned Mission School in New London — to stage “The Hairy Ape” the weekend after it was originally scheduled to close. But then the main actor, Alex Molina, who had come in from California for the production, tested positive. That was the end of any “Hairy Ape” performances.

Wood said that COVID-19 “just rummaged its way through the cast. The understudies were positive.”

Losing so many performances has had a big financial impact on Flock.

“We’re limping,” Wood said. “ … We just got hit two shows, back to back.”

COVID-19 has been difficult on all industries, but Wood noted that, with Flock, “It’s not like, ‘Oh, OK, I can get so-and-so to cover this person’s shift.’ This person has thousands of lines memorized.”

With producing theaters like Flock, even if a show has to be scrapped last-minute because of COVID-19, the organization has already expended money on advertising, rentals, costumes, sets, and the actors’ contracts.

“That’s spent,” Wood said. “And we rely on X amount coming back via tickets, just even to coast toward breaking even.”

Wood is still assessing the financial damage.

“I’m redoing budgets, trying to figure something out,” he said.

Down to two

There was a time when Flock would do six or seven shows a year.

In the summer of 2020, it staged Aristophanes’ “The Birds” with masks outdoors in Westerly’s Wilcox Park. Last summer, it produced “Cyrano de Bergerac” outside at Mitchell College in New London.

“This year, I budgeted for two, and both are gone,” Wood said. “Within that, you also are trying to bring back the trust of an audience. It’s, ‘OK, well, is this show going to get canceled again?’ When you suddenly run into that, you’re losing that trust with your customer base.”

The impact on ‘Misery’

Chestnut Street Playhouse was staging “Misery” on Thursdays through Sundays over two weekends in late October.

“We got through first weekend, had a lot of great momentum, were super-excited about launching into our second weekend with such good word of mouth,” said Lisa Foss, who was directing “Misery” and is the president of the Chestnut Street Playhouse board of directors.

“Thursday morning, one of my actors sent me a message with a positive COVID test.”

The play has a cast of three, but the focus is really on two actors. In theory, after that original schedule was out of the question, the theater could have had the actor who caught COVID-19 play the role in a mask — but the character, a writer who is bedridden and held captive by his “biggest fan” for much of the show, only has his face to use in those circumstances.

“And it’s not the show, it’s not the experience we created for the audience,” Foss said.

Typically, Chestnut Street Playhouse doesn’t have understudies, though they might be able to get someone up to speed on smaller responsibilities in a smaller show. Most actors at the theater are non-paid/volunteer.

In “Misery,” Foss noted, “There’s stage combat. There’s special effects. It took hours and hours of crafting these moments. In a community theater setting, to ask an understudy to do all of that work for the possibility of maybe getting a performance, it just won’t happen. It’s too much time to ask somebody to invest. … With a show like this, it’s just not possible in a community theater setting to have an understudy for either of those two major roles.”

Smaller-scale shows

“As we went through the season, we made some conscious choices to do smaller-scale shows so that we could possibly mitigate this problem,” Foss said.

As for money, Foss said that Rodney Green, who is the theater’s treasurer and vice president, helped hammer out a budget model when the theater first formed that was very fiscally responsible. They base their budgets on 50% of the theater being filled for each show. So if they have at least a half-full auditorium, they make some money. But that doesn’t include overhead items; it takes $4,000 a month to keep the doors open, paying for items like utilities and maintenance.

Foss said Chestnut Street is surviving primarily because of grant support. In addition, patrons have been coming out and supporting the theater when it has held events.

A first for Artreach

“This is the first time I’ve ever had to cancel a show after tickets have been sold … in the history of being at Artreach since 1993.”

So said Beccca Atkins, executive director of Artreach, which provides arts programs to adults who have experienced mental illness and raises awareness about mental health.

Artreach’s two Music Heals Coffeehouse performances had been set for Sept. 30 and Oct. 1 at the Chestnut Street Playhouse. These were to be the first in-person, public ticket-sales event for Artreach since the pandemic began.

But a coffeehouse band member tested positive for COVID-19 on Sept. 27. Atkins suspected she had it and tested positive on Sept. 29.

They knew they’d reschedule the shows, but it was a question of when.

When Artreach performs at Chestnut Street Playhouse, it does so between the runs of different playhouse shows. There was a one-week window of availability — but then the playhouse had to postpone one weekend of “Misery” to that window because of COVID-19.

“They needed to reschedule (‘Misery’) because of course they need the ticket sales – all of us do,” Atkins said.

So they’re now sharing this upcoming weekend, wedging in matinees and evening gigs of the Coffeehouse and “Misery” where it works. The schedule: “Misery” at 7:30 p.m. Nov. 10, 2 p.m. Nov. 12, and 2 and 6 p.m. Nov. 13; and Artreach Coffeehouse 7:30 p.m. Nov. 11 and 12.

As far as the financial impact, Atkins said that Artreach is primarily grant-funded so a much smaller percent of its earned income is from ticket sales than theaters’ might be.

At Goodspeed and the Garde

Meanwhile, at Goodspeed Musicals in East Haddam, Artistic Director Donna Lynn Hilton said they delayed the opening of “Anne of Green Gables” this summer by two days because COVID-19 cases slowed progress during the rehearsal period.

She said on Thursday that they have been fortunate not to have lost any more performances since then. With the season going through the end of the year, they’ll continue to be vigilant with testing and masking, she said, to try to keep everyone healthy and the show running.

With COVID-19 still around, they knew that the swings and understudies this year would be more critical than ever.

“Our team focused a great deal of attention on preparing them to go on prior to the opening of each production,” Hilton said. “Our swings join us from first rehearsal, learn the show along with the remainder of the company and begin to swing in during rehearsals whenever the opportunity presents. In all cases, our swings and understudies have been incredibly well prepared throughout the season. Many have gone on and they’ve performed beautifully … as they always do. They are our heroes always, but especially so this season.”

At the Garde Arts Center in New London, the venue has so far had no cancellations of shows coming in this season due to COVID-19, according to Jeanne Sigel, marketing and development director at the Garde.

Pitching in at Ivoryton

The Ivoryton Playhouse in Ivoryton saw two productions affected by COVID-19 this season.

The first show, “Star of Freedom,” had its whole final week scuttled because five of the seven members of the cast all got COVID-19. Jacqui Hubbard, who is the Ivoryton’s executive/artistic director, said that was particularly heartbreaking because it was a new show; new shows often depend on word of mouth building over time, attracting more theatergoers as the run goes on. Because of how the Ivoryton season is scheduled, there was no time to squeeze in additional performances of “Star of Freedom” before the next production took the stage.

Then, during “Ring of Fire” in August, four of the crew and one of the cast were out for a week after testing positive. Everyone else pitched in wherever they could so that only one performance was lost.

“I jumped on a soundboard which I hadn’t done in 15 years. Everybody just jumped in,” Hubbard said. “We had people who hadn’t worked backstage in years jump in as dressers and putting wigs on. At intermission, we all flew out and worked behind the bar. It was a crazy week, but, you know, you do what you have to do to make it work.”

Bigger theaters usually have several understudies, but Ivoryton has often made do with having a male and a female who would cover most of the roles but never really expected to go on.

“We have to think of that in budgeting shows going forward,” Hubbard said. “The Christmas show is four young women. It’s called ‘The Winter Wonderettes,’ and I have one young woman who has worked with us for years who is kind of playing a super swing – she’s covering everybody’s role. Anyone goes down, she’s in there. It’s a big deal for her because she is learning four roles. But for our financial situation at this time of the year, it was all we could manage, to add one more salary.”

Ivoryton is on an Actors’ Equity contract, so they’ve had to do things like test three times a week — and, if the actors kiss, they have to test every day.

“It’s been a huge strain to try and maintain this safe work bubble. But we’ve done pretty well,” Hubbard said.

And this year has certainly been better than 2021.

“I feel like we’re getting to a better place, but I’ll be honest with you, every week when we test, I am praying that everybody is negative,” Hubbard said.

k.dorsey@theday.com