An UPDATE ON OUR OPERATIONS

ARTS AFTER HOURS | Lynn’s Community Theatre

Spring 2023

Dear patrons, supporters, and friends,

After ten wonderful years of theatre and community events, we at Arts After Hours have

made the very difficult but necessary decision to suspend operations for the foreseeable

future. We celebrate our decade of artistic success as we say goodbye to the theatre with

heavy hearts.

As you know, the COVID-19 pandemic was devastating for the arts community,

particularly small theatres like ours. We unfortunately are not the first theater to

experience this reality. We are simply no longer able to offset our liabilities while

offering the quality of production our patrons have come to expect.

We understand this comes as a loss to our community, and we grieve alongside our

longtime supporters. We are profoundly grateful to everyone who played a part in

bringing live theatre to Lynn over the years, and we celebrate the good work we were

able to do together. Whether it was howling with laughter at Avenue Q and Nunsense:

The Musical, getting covered in fake blood at Carrie or one of our other outrageous

Halloween productions, or addressing a difficult subject with Kings and Next to

Normal, we built community around the power of the stage and helped introduce our

amazing downtown to hundreds of visitors. Thank you being a part of that!

Moving forward, all theater rental inquiries should be directed to the Lynn

Museum, who now manages the Neal Rantoul Black Box Theater at Lynn Arts.

We sincerely hope that live theatre remains a staple of downtown Lynn. The show, after

all, must go on! With great gratitude, we take a final bow and thank you once again for

your love and support.

Sincerely,

The Arts After Hours Board of Directors and Artistic Staff

OUR LAST TWO YEARS…

Thank you to all who attended Side by Side by sondheim!

Thank you to our special guest artists who joined us between Acts at the following performances:

Sarah and Corey Jackson (Arts After Hours Co-Founder) - June 10th

Drew Russo, City of Lynn Personnel Director - June 17th

SIDE BY SIDE BY SONDHEIM

June 4-18, 2022

Congratulations to the cast & crew of SHORT & SCARY, October 2021!

Enjoying the We’re Back-yard Bash, Aug 2021

we had a blast

AT OUR BACKYARD BASH!

Huge thanks to all of our sponsors and patrons for an amazing day of fun and celebration. Hope to see you at the Fall show!

congratulations to our 10-min play contest winner

“TALKING OVER TEA”

BY KIMBERLY SHIMER OF MEDIA, PA

OUR WINNING PLAYWRIGHT AND CREATIVE TEAM will be performing this play LIVE in 2022. More info to come!

Arts After Hours strongly encourages submissions by BIPOC writers, first-time playwrights, Lynn residents, and playwrights of all genders.

In Spring 2021, Arts After Hours held our 10-Minute Play Contest to promote new works by local playwrights. Arts After Hours aimed to provide a creative outlet for theatre artists (writers, actors, creative teams) while presenting our audiences with new material. The livestream event of the winning plays served as a pay-what-you-can fundraiser for our theater.

Guidelines:

Any playwrights (ages 14+) regardless of background or experience are encouraged to submit a new play with a 10-minute maximum duration by March 15th via this form.

Any and all genres and themes are welcome! Arts After Hours strongly encourages submissions by BIPOC writers, first-time playwrights, Lynn residents, and playwrights of all genders.

Interested playwrights may attend our optional, free Play Development Workshop on Thursday March 4th via Zoom in advance of submission.

From all submissions, 3 plays will be chosen to be produced virtually at a livestream this Spring/Summer, details TBA based on winners availability.

Of the 3 plays produced, audiences will vote for their 1 favorite play.

The 1 winning playwright will have the option to work with the Arts After Hours creative staff to write a play to be produced on an Arts After Hours live stage in a post-pandemic production.

Arts After Hours 2020-2021 Season

May 29, 2020

Dear friends,

At Arts After Hours, we have spent the last two months hoping that we could continue to bring pertinent, local, live theatre to Lynn with our 2020-21 season. We even held onto hope that we would be celebrating our 10th Anniversary Season with you this evening during our celebration Gala where we planned to announce our program for this summer, our Halloween show, and our innovative Spring 2021 productions.

As professionals in our field and government officials continue to discuss the “new normal” of Fall 2020 and the next year, it has become increasingly clear to us that what we do in our 98-seat black box at Lynn Arts would not be possible to maintain under such conditions. As many of our neighboring theatres have already decided, we must also join them in canceling our 2020-21 season as we originally imagined it.

Given the public safety concerns, we cannot confidently move forward with live theatre that brings together cast, crew, orchestra and audience in a responsible manner. We depend upon donor and audience support to fund our performances, and we don’t want to promise you a season of shows that we would slowly have to cancel over time. If things change and we find a safe avenue for live performance sooner than expected, we will jump at the opportunity to produce a show again. We have our production teams assembled, and we are so excited to present Season 10 to you once we know it is a viable option.

In the meantime, we will be working within our artist communities to help keep theatre and performance art alive in Lynn and beyond. Theatre is a resilient art form that has endured through the ages, and we are exploring various ways we can offer theatre opportunities for artists and audiences in the virtual world. We will remain patient, and we can't wait to be back in our black box providing live theatre to this community.

Until then, we are working to maintain our space at LynnArts and provide rentals to our many community groups as the city slowly opens up to more industries. We know this is a difficult time for every single one of us, but if you have the means, any donation will go directly towards keeping our space. Please consider making a donation to offset the costs of our theater during the time that we cannot produce work to balance our expenses, so that it remains there for our community groups and for us when we’re able to produce shows again.

Thank you for thinking about us. We are thinking about you, and we can’t wait to see you at the next show.

Samantha Gambaccini

Producing Artistic Director

Assassins, June 2019 — **Assassins**, June 2019

it’s time to celebrate

10th anniversary gala

Dear friends,

This event has been postponed due to the novel coronavirus. Please see our statement for more information. We’ll celebrate soon!

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Since 2010, Arts After Hours has brought thousands of audience members from the North Shore and beyond to Lynn for professional theatre events. While many theater companies value artistic excellence, we equally value our community impact and are committed to downtown Lynn. Our goal is to revitalize Lynn’s economy through the arts.

To celebrate our accomplishments and kick-off our tenth anniversary season, we are hosting a Gala on Friday, November 20 at the Bayside Function Room in Nahant. This premier event is unlike anything we have hosted before. We will take a look back at some of our favorite shows with performances featuring former cast members, highlight our recent work with our Youth Theatre Workshops, and announce our entire lineup for Season 10, which begins with our annual Halloween show in October.

When?

Rescheduled: Fall 2021

Tickets available soon!

now playing