Like every outlet for live entertainment, Arizona Broadway Theatre, at 7701 W. Paradise Lane, Peoria, has dramatically changed its approach in response to stay-at-home precautions due to the novel …
You must be a member to read this story.
Join our family of readers for as little as $5 per month and support local, unbiased journalism.
Current print subscribers can create a free account by clicking here
Otherwise, follow the link below to join.
To Our Valued Readers –
Visitors to our website will be limited to five stories per month unless they opt to subscribe. The five stories do not include our exclusive content written by our journalists.
For $6.99, less than 20 cents a day, digital subscribers will receive unlimited access to YourValley.net, including exclusive content from our newsroom and access to our Daily Independent e-edition.
Our commitment to balanced, fair reporting and local coverage provides insight and perspective not found anywhere else.
Your financial commitment will help to preserve the kind of honest journalism produced by our reporters and editors. We trust you agree that independent journalism is an essential component of our democracy. Please click here to subscribe.
Peoria stage ‘looking toward the future’ during shutdown
Posted
We are looking toward the future and our collective recovery from this moment in time, and we will be ready to jump into action the minute we are able.”
Like every outlet for live entertainment, Arizona Broadway Theatre, at 7701 W. Paradise Lane, Peoria, has dramatically changed its approach in response to stay-at-home precautions due to the novel coronavirus. Those new approaches have found two missions: taking entertainment online and supporting the community.
The Peoria stage remains dark for now until circumstances prove safe to move forward.
“We are looking toward the future and our collective recovery from this moment in time, and we will be ready to jump into action the minute we are able,” Executive Producer/CEO Kiel Klaphake posted to the ABT website March 18.
Since that time, Arizona Broadway Theatre launched its Mask Relief Effort, and at last count ABT Costume Shop staff and volunteer community members have built and mailed-out close to 300 masks to healthcare facilities in New Jersey, Oregon and Colorado. The Mask Relief team also fulfilled mask requests for distribution by the National Guard to the Navajo Nation in northeast Arizona.
“Thank you for the wonderful masks for the Navajo Nation as we, the Army National Guard, push forward to supply this community with much needed masks,” Army National Guard Lieutenant Coronal Joann Cole Shoffner stated in a news release to the theater. “We are so grateful for your generous donation of masks and I know the Navajo are too. From the bottom of our hearts we honor and thank you.”
ABT has called upon all sewers and crafters within the community to assist and organize a volunteer effort to provide aid for the immediate need for non-N95 tested medical face masks – both locally and nationally.
“The response from our community has been incredible,” stated Lottie Dixon, ABT’s costume director and the lead for the theater’s Mask Relief Effort. “From the donation of yards of fabric to people asking for mask kits, which they can assemble within their own homes – it’s been incredible to see our community pitch-in to support this cause.”
The theatre has individual mask assembly kits, which can be sewn by others at home. Email lottie@azbroadway.org for information on getting an assembly kit.
The theater also has taken to an online presence.
Kurtis Overby, who serves as the associate artistic director and resident choreographer for the Arizona Broadway Theatre, where he also is director of children programming, has an ongoing tap dancing instructional series titled “Tap-A-Long Tuesdays” on the ABT YouTube channel.
As the 501(c)(3) nonprofit faces, in Mr. Klaphake’s words, “one of the most challenging circumstances we’ve faced over the past 15 years,” theatergoers can donate to the ABT Relief Fund at http://bit.ly/DonateABTReliefFund.
Steve Stockmar has been with the Independent Newsmedia team since 2017. An NAU alum and Peoria resident, Steve’s community journalism pursuits focus mostly on arts & culture, education, and profiles of neighbors making a difference. In his spare time Steve plays in a vintage baseball league using uniforms and rules from the 1860s, and also acts (badly) in community theater. In addition, he has an unhealthy obsession with baseball and the Chicago Cubs.
By 
