Hello again friends! When last we posted in this space, we were promoting  yet another episode of THE INTERMISSION SHOW. That was March 2nd, just four months ago, but it seems longer. And a LOT has happened since then.

WE ARE OPEN! It’s a been a wild ride, but we made it. When the governor announced in April that the state would be reopening on June 15th, we were skeptical. We already had plans to open outdoors in May (once City approval was acquired) but now we were being told that we could open indoors, at full capacity, in June?  Sounded too good to be true. We’d purchased lighting and sound equipment, submitted plans for socially distant outdoor seating and accessibility. Our cast was already contracted and ready to go for THE COMPLETE WORKS OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE [abridged] in an outdoor setting. But if we could open indoors, at full capacity, safely, then we had to do it. So we started taking baby steps in that direction, checking the news daily and hardly daring to believe that it was possible.

SLO REP Lobby before our clean-up day.

Do you know how it feels when you haven’t exercised in a while? You know, maybe you got busy at work and that daily run just didn’t happen for a month, maybe two months? Well, try 15 months. 15 months of no live theatre. Do we even remember how to do this? Our actors started memorizing their lines. It felt weird, but good. We set up the ticketing system. It’s a little cranky after taking more than a year off, but it works… mostly. The lobby is a mess. We need a new custodian. We need new front-of-house managers. What are the protocols for reopening? What signage do we need?  Masks or no masks?

SLO REP lobby after a full day of cleaning and reorganizing.

First things first:  our dedicated staff of six take a “grub day” and completely clean and reorganize the lobby and kitchen. Feels great. Looks even better.

Rehearsals are going swell. No big surprise there since we’re working with three of the best, and funniest actors on the Central Coast — Billy Breed, Suzy Newman and Jeffrey Salsbury. The show is directed by Kevin Harris, with choreography by Drew Silvaggio, scenic design by the amazing Dave Linfield, costumes by Megan Selby, ably assisted by Randon Pool, and video support provided by RyLo Media Design, Ryan C. Loyd. All of the above managed and organized by Production Stage Manager Amanda Rose Johnson.

Things are moving along, but we’re still not sure if it’s really going to happen. Will California really reopen on June 15th? And will our audience come back?

On May 27th, we released the good news about reopening. KCBX Arts Beat interviewed us about the show (you can read and hear that interview with Kevin Harris and Suzy Newman HERE.) KSBY started running our commercial, New Times had our back with advertising support and Dave Congalton welcomed us back to his studio at KVEC for an interview, even gave away a few tickets!

Tickets went on sale June 4th and the response was overwhelming! Opening night was scheduled for Friday, June 18th, but for our final dress rehearsal on Thursday, we knew we had to do something special. We invited a small audience of our most dedicated supporters to join us as our first audience since March of 2020. All of these incredible folks had sponsored shows that never happened in 2020, made additional donations when they were asked and even when they weren’t asked. We knew when we reopened our doors that we wanted to share our first performance with them. We laughed. We cried. We hugged. We wore masks. We were back.

Welcome back to live theatre! We did it. We made it through 15 months of pandemic isolation and 87 episodes of The Intermission Show. Now we’re back doing what we do best: live, local theatre! We’ve already made it through three weeks of performances and audiences are loving this show. If you haven’t gotten your tickets yet, you can do that HERE. If you’d like to learn more about our health and safety protocols for this show, you can read that information HERE. If you’re not ready to come back yet, we understand. We’ll be ready to welcome you whenever you are ready. We’re here to stay.

WARNING: THE COMPLETE WORKS OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE [abridged] will inspire frequent belly laughs, occasional giggles, delightful chortles, huge guffaws and prolonged fits of laughter. Please use caution if you have not exercised your laugh muscles over the past 15 months.

SLO REP is celebrating our 75th Anniversary during the 2021-2022 Season and we have some wonderful shows planned for you! However, we are being extra-cautious and will be releasing the news about our season one-show-at-a-time for the next couple of months.  If the past year has taught us anything, it’s that we should expect the unexpected. If California stays open, we’ll stay open and our next show will premiere in late August. If all goes well with that one, the next one will open in October. And finally…well, we just have to bring back Ralphie and A CHRISTMAS STORY for the holidays! And after that? We’ve got an entire “mini-season” of shows planned through June, 2022. Please continue to watch our website and social media for new show announcements (and more!) as we gradually work our way into a very exciting new season.

Thank you for sticking with us for all of those dark months and for continuing to cheer us on as we make the impossible possible again and open our doors to the public. We wouldn’t be here without you. You can view a list of our incredible Show Sponsors for this show HERE. You can view a list of all of the amazing folks who supported THE INTERMISSION SHOW over 13 months and 87 episodes HERE. You can view a list, and give a round of well-deserved applause to ALL of our 2020-2021 Season supporters HERE. What an amazing and humbling experience it has been to experience such an outpouring of love and support from so many of our friends and fans during a very challenging year. We can never thank you enough for your generous support…but we’ll keep trying.

Stay tuned for more information very, VERY soon about our next show!