Outside of CSPAC on North Campus.
All shows at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center were $10 until yesterday — a special government shutdown deal for the general public, which would usually have had to pay at least $25 for some shows. But along with yesterday’s vote on Capitol Hill and today’s reopening of nonessential public services came the end of many such deals.
The center’s offering was a continuation of a promotion from the weekend of Oct. 4, when it offered free tickets with discount code “SHUTDOWN” to the Miami String Quartet and a performance, “Bridging the Musical Spectrum: Tribute to Chuck Brown.” About 30 people took advantage of the deal, said Erica Bondarev, CSPAC marketing and communications director.
“The D.C. community is obviously connected to the federal government,” Bondarev said. “You can’t ignore that this was going on.”
Creating the promotion during the shutdown was the center’s way of helping the neighboring area, Bondarev said.
“A core of what we do as performing arts people and administrators is to provide a service to folks that allows them to still participate,” she said. “It’s a great way to create a community around rallying and a place to meet and gather when times are difficult.”
The center joined several other venues in Washington have put together similar promotions. The 9:30 Club called its deal the “Affordable Ticket Act” and offered a buy-one, get-one-free deal for tickets to some October shows, including The Flaming Lips at Merriweather Post Pavilion.
“In a time where our supposed ‘leaders’ have squabbled like preschoolers and taken their collective balls home, we’re all in need of some definitive action,” the nightclub wrote in an email announcing the deal to 9:30 Club subscribers. “Shutdown? We’re putting our foot down.”
Ford’s Theatre is performing The Laramie Project to honor the 15th anniversary of the murder of University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard for being gay. But because the theater is part of the National Park Service, the production was shut out of its venue. The First Congregational United Church of Christ, a few blocks from Ford’s, stepped up to help, and The Laramie Project’s shows during the shutdown were performed there.
Ford’s Theatre would have opened tomorrow with the help of emergency funding from a trustee regardless of yesterday’s vote and performances of The Laramie Project will continue there through Oct. 27, the theater wrote in a release on its website.