COVID-19 UPDATE

To Our Goodspeed Family and Friends,

Greetings from Goodspeed. I hope that each and every one of you is safe and healthy. Our patrons are important to us and it has been our joy and privilege to make the Opera House glow with excitement, both inside and out, each April to December season. Sadly, this year will be different.

As you can imagine, Goodspeed has been significantly impacted by the effects of the COVID-19 virus. We have had to make some heartbreaking decisions. With courage and hope, we are taking a number of steps to protect our staff, our community and the longevity of Goodspeed Musicals.

Schedule Changes

SOUTH PACIFIC has been postponed until 2021. As we look to that future and the realities of reopening our theatre, nothing is more important than the safety and well-being of our cherished Members, staff, artists and ticket buyers. This decision was reached after weeks of exploring, creating and revising best practice protocols to bring the audience safely back into the theatre. And in the end, as much as we want to begin presenting musicals in our theatre again this fall, we realized that we could not overcome the obstacles under the evolving State guidelines to bring an audience safely into the Opera House.
ANNE OF GREEN GABLES has been postponed until 2021. It was heartbreaking for us to make the decision to postpone Anne of Green Gables, but it has become clear that we would not have enough time to build and rehearse the show in time for a summer opening. Our producing staff and the creative team both agree that launching a world-premiere musical takes special attention which will not be possible until we are well past this crisis. Moreover, with the current restrictions in place on public assembly we did not want to put our staff and the general public at risk until those restrictions are lifted.
CANDIDE Sadly, we will not be able to produce Candide this season but hope to revisit it in the future.
THE WORKLIGHT SERIES We have decided to postpone the launch of our new Worklight Series at The Terris Theatre until 2021. Our efforts to advance new musicals will continue behind the scenes, but on a smaller scale until we are operating at full capacity again.

Other Events

Our annual gala, which is our largest fundraiser, will not go on as planned in June. We hope to host it in a more limited form this fall.
Our Kids Company has gone virtual for the fall! LEARN MORE

Impact On Our People

All of these changes will cause a profound loss of revenue for our non-profit theatre which we estimate to be in the millions of dollars. To mitigate those losses we have instituted additional staff furloughs, layoffs and reduced salaries for those essential to keep the business going. This is the most painful part because it directly affects the lives of so many people who are passionate about their jobs and about Goodspeed.

Now more than ever, we need your support, your patience and your understanding as we work our way through this difficult period in our history. With most of Goodspeed's 2020 Programming cancelled, we are in a very precarious financial situation. If you are able, please consider a donation to the theatre at www.goodspeed.org. Any amount will help ensure Goodspeed will be here for you and for generations to come.

Ticket Information

There are several options for those of you who have purchased tickets to the cancelled shows: Donate your tickets to help us make it through this time of crisis, keep the value of your tickets as a credit toward future ticket purchases, or receive a refund. Please contact the Box Office at 860-873-8668 to speak with us about your ticket return.

Thank You

Now more than ever, we are grateful for the support of our members. We send our heartfelt thanks to all of you and are anxious for the day when we can once again gather together for heartwarming stories and songs of joy, laughter and love.

Together we will get through this and together we will celebrate happier times at Goodspeed in the very near future.

Sincerely,

Michael Gennaro
Executive Director