Return of the “Jewel of Main Street”

The the­ater was dark, save for a small light on the stage. Known as a “ghost light,” it’s a tra­di­tion that goes back per­haps a hun­dred years or more. Theaters used to leave one light on when the house lights were dark, and the build­ing was empty.

In the ear­ly days of the COVID pan­dem­ic, the term took on a poignant mean­ing at Winchester’s beloved old Leeds Theater, today known as the Leeds Center for the Arts.

It was March of 2020, the month that life changed dra­mat­i­cal­ly for us all. At the Leeds Center for the Arts, Winchester’s thriv­ing per­form­ing arts venue, every­thing had changed.

Tracey Miller sat alone in the eeri­ly qui­et the­ater, bathed in the ghost­ly light. She thought about the whirl­wind of events that led to the dark venue on the week­end when it had been sched­uled to pre­mière the pop­u­lar Thornton Wilder play Our Town.

Just days before, the cen­ter had had to make the dif­fi­cult deci­sion to close down. The cast was set, the cos­tumes ready, and every­one had been eager­ly antic­i­pat­ing open­ing night. 

COVID had oth­er ideas.

Tracey is the President of the 11-mem­ber board that gov­erns the cen­ter. She describes her job as “wear­ing a ton of hats.”  She does every­thing from pro­duc­ing shows, mak­ing sure that facil­i­ties are run­ning well, and ensur­ing that all oper­a­tional details are tak­en care of. Like the oth­er board mem­bers, Tracey vol­un­teers her time at the cen­ter. She calls it a labor of love.

Tracey and the board over­see two full-time employ­ees. Since July, the cen­ter has had an exec­u­tive direc­tor, Selena Arnett, and an Assistant Executive Director, Mary Kate Knight. The cen­ter was able to hire Selena as the result of a “gen­er­ous gift” to the organization.

She was think­ing about how the cast of Our Town had decid­ed to do a final “read through” via Zoom. Listening to the actors recite their lines with­out any audi­ence reac­tion just added to the pro­found sad­ness of the occasion.

Now, she sat down in front of the stage. The chairs were still set in the for­ma­tion as if a live rehearsal were tak­ing place. As Tracey pon­dered in the dim glow of the ghost light, she won­dered if things would ever return to nor­mal again. Would they ever be able to return to this hal­lowed space and cre­ate art, to fos­ter com­mu­ni­ty, to do what they most love?

The ghost light remained on for about 6 months.

New light

By June of this year, things were look­ing up. People were get­ting vac­ci­nat­ed. Masks became a rar­i­ty. Main Street and all of Winchester were com­ing back to life.

And plans were laid to exchange the ghost light for the house lights and the daz­zle of the icon­ic mar­quee in front of Leeds. The board of the Leeds Center made the deci­sion that “the show must go on” and so Our Town was resched­uled for the fall. There was a renewed opti­mism and excite­ment in the air among the board, the staff, sup­port­ers, and of course the cast and crew of Our Town.

The jew­el was back!

“We strug­gled a bit with this being our first show back,” Tracey said. “because the con­tents are heavy. It’s about life and liv­ing and death — but it’s also about com­mu­ni­ty and about tak­ing care of one anoth­er and about our oblig­a­tions as a soci­ety in a small town to take care of one anoth­er. It was a beau­ti­ful and pro­found show.”

Tracey Johnson Miller

Spoiler alert: COVID once again con­spired to inter­vene, and near­ly derail the show yet again.

But this time, things would be dif­fer­ent. Utilizing every tool at their dis­pos­al – manda­to­ry vac­ci­na­tions for the cast, either a vac­ci­na­tion or a neg­a­tive test for patrons, and oth­er safe­ty mea­sures – they were able to pull it off.

Tracey explained that they had no choice. Shows are expen­sive to pro­duce. If one cast mem­ber falls ill to COVID, the show has to be closed. A small arts com­pa­ny can­not afford to have that hap­pen after so much has been invest­ed in a show.

But thanks to their tenac­i­ty and adher­ence to safe­ty mea­sures by every­one involved, no one got sick and by October, open­ing night final­ly arrived.

“We strug­gled a bit with this being our first show back,” Tracey said. “because the con­tents are heavy. It’s about life and liv­ing and death — but it’s also about com­mu­ni­ty and about tak­ing care of one anoth­er and about our oblig­a­tions as a soci­ety in a small town to take care of one anoth­er. It was a beau­ti­ful and pro­found show.”

She added that the show “spoke to peo­ple on many dif­fer­ent lev­els. People would come out and many cried, but they would be hap­py as they could be. It’s just the pro­fun­di­ty of this play that was writ­ten in 1937 that still res­onates in our town — or any town.”

Tracey said the show was very well received, and well attended.

Was it a success?

“We gauge suc­cess based on engage­ment. What are we giv­ing? What are we putting out there and how is it received? How many peo­ple see the show?”

By those stan­dards, it was a resound­ing success.

Next week: A very spe­cial hol­i­day show in December and a fundrais­ing cam­paign high­light upcom­ing events at the Leeds. And we talk about the center’s Youth Board and about excit­ing future plans. Don’t miss it!