The Show Must Go On

Belfast Summer Nights

Chris Siefken

RATHER THAN TAKING THE FINAL CURTAIN CALL, THE REGION'S PERFORMING ARTS COMMUNITY IMPROVISED TO CONNECT ARTISTS AND AUDIENCES IN A SEASON LIKE NO OTHER.

Belfast Maskers

Scott Smith

Belfast Maskers

Chris Siefken

Belfast Summer Nights

Chris Siefken

Belfast Summer Nights

Chris Siefken

Belfast Flying Shoes

Colonial Theatre

On a warm summer evening last September, a scene unfolded in Belfast Harbor that had a distinct, only-in-Waldo County kind of feel. There on the Armistice Footbridge, beloved local singer songwriters The Gawler Family Band crooned their rollicking folk tunes and hypnotic harmonies to fans who bobbed along from their sailboats, kayaks, and canoes, and from the banks of the Passagassawakeag River.

"To see families and boats swaying together in the waves was a profound joy,” says Annadeene Fowler, who with Ando Anderson helped organize the event, part of the Belfast Summer Nights outdoor concert series. The concerts usually fill the city streets and parks, but were moved to the bridge to allow for social distance. “It was so uplifting and evoked the supportive and hopeful feelings that people experienced this pandemic summer. It was everything we were missing.”

The concert was one of many ways that the region’s bevy of theater, dance, and musical groups flexed their considerable creative muscles in 2020, when COVID made business as usual practically impossible.

"People adapted and used a great deal of ingenuity and imagination,” says Paul Hodgson, director and co-founder of Everyman Repertory Theatre, a 10-year-old professional troupe.

Though the theater cancelled live performances, the theater partnered with the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland to produce “The Painting Speaks,” two dozen short audio stories, written and narrated by Everyman pros, that animate paintings in the museum’s collection. The Farnsworth posted the videos online and distributed them through its newsletters. The program was so successful that Everyman is planning to expand to other museums. “Working with another organization like this allows us to expand our field of creativity that working on our own doesn’t give you the opportunity to do,” Hodgson says.

Midcoast Theater Company developed a series of audio dramas in the spirit of old-time radio shows, which actors recorded and the theater posted on its website and Facebook page.

"It’s a niche we never really explored,” says Jason Bannister, managing artistic director of the community theater group. Bannister plans to resume live performances this year from the acting group’s new home in the old Waldo County Courthouse, with four plays, outside at first, then inside if conditions allow. The radio shows may continue even after the actors return to the stage. “It will be just another facet of what we do,” he says.

Belfast Maskers brought its shows outside, performing five one-act comedies on the lawn of the Basil Burwell Community Theater, for audiences of 40 who sat on marked spaces six feet apart. The shows were so popular that they added a performance, developed a slate of Halloween-themed one-acts, then staged 'Let There Be Lights!,' its first online-only play, available on its website.

"Everybody was just gushing because they desperately needed that,” says artistic director Meg Nickerson. For 2021, they’re planning to do six performances, inside if they can, and outside if circumstances require.

Belfast Flying Shoes hit pause on its community contra dances and all-comers band jamborees, which draw hundreds of stompers and whirlers each month. Instead, the group focused on its outreach programs, providing 248 ukuleles to local schools, offering virtual music lessons to residents of the Maine Coastal Regional Reentry Center, and partnering with Hospice Volunteers of Waldo County to present outdoor concerts at a local retirement community.

"We can’t really dance together, but we did want to offer a way for people to stay connected,” says Chrissy Fowler, part-time administrator of the group.

The Maine Celtic Celebration, which draws thousands to downtown Belfast for its three-day event each July, created a video montage of performances by artists who were scheduled to play. While the event didn’t include popular draws like the cheese-rolling contest, the video was critical to staying engaged with supporters, says Claudia Luchetti, past president of the festival. The group is hoping to do a live event in 2021. Skipping another year wasn’t an option.

"Turning out the lights for a year,” Luchetti says, “might have meant turning out the lights forever.”