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Pacifica Spindrift Players President Cat Imperatosits in the theater on Friday. She says they could launch a production if the theater group could muster enough support.
It was a lonely two seasons for Hilary Eliza Mason who holds regular seats to Pacifica Spindrift Players performances.
The elementary school teacher said the pause to live theater due to the COVID-19 pandemic was hard. She’s been a season ticket holder for years.
Pacifica Spindrift Players President Cat Imperatosits in the theater on Friday. She says they could launch a production if the theater group could muster enough support.
“PSP was struggling to fill the seats pre-pandemic and now they are really going to have a hard time selling tickets to shows,” she wrote in an email to the Tribune, “For me, missing the social event of going to see a play or musical is nothing but a memory. Life without PSP affects my community and I really miss it.”
Mason says she feels a kind of withdrawal symptom as a result of the loss of regular social events like live theater.
“I feel less connected to my community. I feel sad when I remember how PSP used to be and then how hard it is going to be for them to come back,” Mason wrote.
Mason says she always looks forward to a new season of PSP theater. “I love the whole process — from getting the first email of the season with the titles of the coming plays, to the surprise of the images used for the playbills and to finally experiencing the show,” she said. “I love getting to know certain cast members by watching them in multiple performances. I love the quality of the performances PSP puts out, especially the musicals. I look forward to excellent entertainment each season.”
She watched television to pass the time, but it’s not the same.
The PSP board struggled with all kinds of issues during the closure, said Cat Imperato, PSP board president, who works as a nurse practitioner.
Cat Imperatosays the theater group lost some of its sense of community over the course of the long pandemic.
“We are now at a place where we could do theater, but we don’t have enough people to produce shows,” she said. “We are struggling how to get around this. One of the biggest challenges is people drifting away. Our community has dwindled.”
To make matters worse, PSP’s downstairs area, space that includes dressing rooms, sets and costumes, flooded. PSP is working with the city to figure out what repairs need to be done, but they will have to repair the drainage system, a crack in the theater wall and the foundation where it has separated from the building in the back.
“Live theater is now more costly to do because of COVID-19. It’s a challenging thing,” Imperato said “We had two shows scheduled, but we didn’t have the people to do it. A lot of people love theater, so we want to find a way to do it.”
Imperato used her medical training to develop the COVID-19 policies for PSP. She worked with Mike Perez, director of Parks, Beaches and Recreation, to approve an outdoor stage reading series for PSP last year. She thinks that was the only one of its kind in the Bay Area.
“There are actors and stage managers who are not ready to come back. We need the manpower more than anything else,” she said. “We have vacancies on the board. We love theater, but it’s been hard to cancel shows when we don’t have a director and other cast members on so many levels.
“We had a team but there are not enough of us anymore,” she said. “We need to figure out what the next stage of PSP looks like.”
Jane Northrop has covered Pacifica for the Pacifica Tribune since 1996. She has won first place John Swett Awards from the California Teachers Association for her coverage of education.
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