After Vermont playhouse flooded, show went on

WESTON

Members of a beloved Vermont acting company were sleeping in theater housing when torrential rains and flooding forced them to flee, with water inundating the playhouse’s vast basement of dressing rooms, costumes and props and reaching into the first floor.

The July storms left the large, column-fronted white Greek Revival building with layers of mud and debris, and as volunteers and others dug out of the mess, the Weston Theater Company eventually kept performing — on higher ground.

The prominent playhouse sits in the center of the 620-resident southern Vermont community of Weston along the West River. The oldest professional theater company in Vermont draws people from around the country, including part-time residents and visitors who want to see actors from the New York City area without traveling to the Big Apple.

When the theater flooded, some actors who were about to arrive for “Singin’ in the Rain” rehearsals were delayed for days. The basement also flooded during Tropical Storm Irene in 2011. This time around the floodwaters were about 0.7 meters higher.

The damage is heartbreaking, especially after the struggle to recover from the pandemic shutting down performances in 2020, said Susanna Gellert, the company’s executive artistic director. The company performed under an outdoor tent in 2021 and didn’t start returning to pre-pandemic numbers until this year, she said.

“The real casualty of it is on our earnings,” she said.

Putting on the show despite the flooding "speaks to the resiliency of theater people," said Andrea Johnson, of Wellesley, Massachusetts, who attended “Singin' in the Rain” with her husband when the show was moved to the company's smaller Walker Farm theater at higher ground. “The show must go on.”

That's what actor Conor McShane, who played Cosmo, said in the musical. “The show must go on come rain, come shine,” he told The Associated Press — though he can't believe he didn't add “come flood” to the line every time, he said.

The theater company, citing the extreme devastation, eventually decided to cut its summer season short, canceling an upcoming show and postponing another until next summer, when Raymond expects the theater to reopen.