APPLETON, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – For the first time in almost 600 days, the Fox Cities Performing Arts Center welcomed back the community to its main stage Wednesday night.
Guests attended the opening night of the Broadway musical, “Wicked.”
When the doors opened at 6:30 p.m. sharp, the Fox Cities P.A.C. welcome back Broadway musical fans from Appleton, like Tanya Lange.
“With them opening for “Wicked,” that is a fantastic show to start with.”
And long time season ticket holders from Stevens Point, Katie Schroth.
“We’ve seen shows in New York. We’ve seen shows here. It’s fun to be back it’s fun. It’s really wonderful to have this caliber of theater fairly local for us. I mean, it’s a little bit of a drive, but it’s fairly local. It’s wonderful.”
The curtains to Thrivent Hall were closed for 594 days. While the P.A.C. opened in August for Mile of Music, and two weekends ago for the One Man Star Wars and Avengers Shows, it was the first time a Broadway Musical was hitting the stage.
Bringing back large crowds Lange hadn’t seen driving past the P.A.C. on College Avenue since the pandemic.
“It was kind of like an uneasy feeling. You were unsure and not knowing what was going to happen, if they were going to reopen, you know, like a lot of businesses have not made it through the pandemic, so to know that we can come back tonight, is really, really special.”
To help offset the costs of not having shows for almost 18 months, the P.A.C. did close its doors not only to audiences, but employees too. Only a few employees would come to check on the facility during the closure.
“In order to help persevere the organization, we lost 100% of our earned revenue opportunities for that, you know, 18-month period, and so one of the things we did to help reduce our expenses is we actually closed the building,” said president and CEO of the P.A.C. Maria Van Laanen.
The P.A.C. also created the “Act 2 Fund” with a goal to raise $500,000. Van Laanen says is only $70,000 away from reaching that goal.
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