Will Hamilton Come to San Francisco Again
When the drape dropped following the March eleven, 2020, performance of "Hamilton" at the Orpheum Theatre in San Francisco, the cast had no idea it wouldn't ascent again for 17 months.
"We played the matinee, and they told us at intermission that we wouldn't be coming back that evening," says Marja Harmon, who plays Angelica Schuyler in the blockbuster musical, recalling the performers' early brush with what would become an odyssey of idleness prompted past COVID-nineteen and the resulting rubber precautions. "That morning (San Francisco Mayor) London Brood had made the annunciation of no gatherings over 1,000 people. At the time, it was like, 'We'll exist back March 25.' "
With such a short interruption expected, the cast and crew members didn't even pack upwards that day: Costumes, sets, props, and all sorts of equipment and personal effects were left out, where they sat …
And sat …
Until a calendar month ago, when performers, technicians and others were allowed back in the theater to fix for "Hamilton's" reopening on Aug. 10.
"Everything was as we left it," Harmon says. "It was this weird time sheathing to come up back into your dressing room and just see everything still there."
Darnell Abraham (George Washington) had a like feel when he walked back into the Orpheum later spending the hiatus in Southern California so he could be closer to family.
"Information technology was really eerie to walk into the infinite," he says. "Everything was left in the verbal same spot that we left it — coffee cups, water bottles."
Yet, one thing was still missing — the audience. That changes when "Hamilton," one of the biggest tickets in town, becomes 1 of the starting time major productions in the Bay Area to resume on Aug. 10, where information technology is scheduled to play through Sept. v, www.hamiltonsanfrancisco.com.
Producers say information technology's the first "Hamilton" product to reopen in North America — the testify returns to New York's Broadway a month later on — likewise equally the first major Broadway touring show to exist mounted in California since theaters were allowed to begin welcoming patrons back over again.
The national touring show returns to the Bay Surface area for a run at San Jose's Center for the Performing Arts October. 12-31, www.broadwaysanjose.com.
And continued potent ticket sales suggest that theater fans, who, like all patrons of the arts, have endured closed theaters and venues since March 2020, are eager to again experience the Tony-winning bear witness about Alexander Hamilton and America'due south founders.
"There'south no doubt in my mind that it will be a healing thing," says Rainier Koeners, managing director of BroadwaySF. "For us, the real moment that showed that is when, afterward fifteen months of dark fourth dimension, nosotros announced that 'Hamilton' was coming back, and the initial response we got from audiences was just remarkable.
"That sort of showed that people want to be in the room once more. They want to have the shared experience."
Information technology won't quite be business as usual. Ticketholders will need to produce a proof of vaccination or negative COVID-19 exam before entering the theater. And masks are required throughout the performance. And as of Aug. 20, keeping with a new San Francisco mandate, ticketholders will demand to evidence proof that they have been fully vaccinated for at least 14 days prior to the bear witness date. Proof of a negative COVID exam will no longer be an option.
Fifty-fifty the musical itself takes on new significant in 2021, Harmon says.
"Information technology'south the same material. It's the same evidence. But nosotros are all very different," she says. "And how the lyrics hit now — singing 'Look effectually at how lucky we are to be alive right now.'
"Everything just feels different, and there'south just so much appreciation and gratitude to be able to be in a group and make noise and sing with each other."
Abraham agrees.
"For me, it'due south 'History Has its Eyes on You,' " he says, "which was i of my favorite passages before the pandemic merely now that has a whole deeper significant.
"One of the things that actually excites me — merely also I wonder — will our audiences who accept seen this show before, will they experience the same evidence pre-pandemic, or are they going to experience a brand new testify in this COVID environment that we are now living in? I promise the latter. I really practice hope that they are affected by the show in a new way that they could have never anticipated."
Ironically, Abraham says, the musical that follows America's founders creating a new country amid unrest and dubiousness now returns to remind us that the state is notwithstanding evolving.
"So much did happen this past twelvemonth," Abraham says. "I really practice believe that America continues to find its soul and really figure out what kind of country do we want to exist in the 21st century. I believe the beauty of the lyrics of this show speaks to that — information technology speaks to the then, merely it as well speaks to the now, and how volition we respond in times of doubtfulness and times of adversity."
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Source: https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/08/09/hamilton-finally-returns-to-sf-but-everything-just-feels-different
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