Per Gov. Charlie Baker’s COVID-19 reopening plan, theaters will be allowed to return during stage four, sometime in late July at the earliest.
But in an interview on Boston Public Radio, Joe Spaulding said he isn’t taking chances with patrons and staff of his Boch Center's Wang and Shubert theaters. The center's president and CEO said Friday that they’re planning on reopening, instead, in April of 2021.
"What you’re gonna have to hope for… is hopefully there is a vaccine or therapeutic alternatives [that] come up, and come up sooner,” he said. "If you open, who’s responsibility is it if someone gets COVID-19?"
In place of traditional concerts and events, Spaulding said they’re organizing a series to be streamed online, to send the message to the Boston community that “the lights are on, and we plan on coming back."
"We’re starting in the fall, a ‘Ghost Light Series,’ where we’re gonna have musicians and comedy and stuff on our stages with the ghost light,” he said, referring to the age-old tradition of leaving a single light up on stage whenever theaters are unoccupied.
"I firmly believe that the arts keeps us a civilized society,” he said. “Our whole campaign during this whole process has been ‘arts heal,’ and we’ve done videos, and Instagrams, and Twitters -- done all the things that we need to do to show how important the arts are to all of us.”
“It’s absolutely mind-boggling to me that we’re not gonna have that for quite a while, in our case,” he said.
