LYNN — Arts After Hours, the city’s edgy theater company, has canceled its 2020-21 season due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The company would have been celebrating its 10th anniversary season.
Producing Artistic Director Samantha Gambaccini said it was a “tough decision, but really the only one we could feasibly make. We’ll be back, as soon as possible.”
In a May 29 letter to the company’s supporters Gambaccini wrote: “At Arts After Hours, we have spent the last two months hoping that we could continue to bring pertinent, local, live theatre to Lynn with our 2020-21 season. We even held onto hope that we would be celebrating our 10th Anniversary Season with you this evening during our celebration Gala where we planned to announce our program for this summer, our Halloween show, and our innovative Spring 2021 productions.
“As professionals in our field and government officials continue to discuss the “new normal” of Fall 2020 and the next year, it has become increasingly clear to us that what we do in our 98-seat black box at LynnArts would not be possible to maintain under such conditions. As many of our neighboring theatres have already decided, we must also join them in canceling our 2020-21 season as we originally imagined it.
“Given the public safety concerns, we cannot confidently move forward with live theatre that brings together cast, crew, orchestra and audience in a responsible manner. We depend upon donor and audience support to fund our performances, and we don’t want to promise you a season of shows that we would slowly have to cancel over time. If things change and we find a safe avenue for live performance sooner than expected, we will jump at the opportunity to produce a show again. We have our production teams assembled, and we are so excited to present Season 10 to you once we know it is a viable option.
“In the meantime, we will be working within our artist communities to help keep theatre and performance art alive in Lynn and beyond. Theatre is a resilient art form that has endured through the ages, and we are exploring various ways we can offer theatre opportunities for artists and audiences in the virtual world. We will remain patient, and we can’t wait to be back in our black box providing live theatre to this community.
“Until then, we are working to maintain our space at LynnArts and provide rentals to our many community groups as the city slowly opens up to more industries. We know this is a difficult time for every single one of us, but if you have the means, any donation will go directly towards keeping our space. Please consider making a donation to offset the costs of our theater during the time that we cannot produce work to balance our expenses, so that it remains there for our community groups and for us when we’re able to produce shows again.
“Thank you for thinking about us. We are thinking about you, and we can’t wait to see you at the next show.”