#KIDZ KABARET MOVIE#

Kandiss Hernandez helped Mary McCue save her dad's life last Friday at the Center Stage Theater in Naperville, which Hernandez runs. She's a trained nurse, but the job would have been much tougher if not for a theater owner who planned ahead.įrom now on, these two women will forever share an incredible Father's Day memory. NAPERVILLE, Illinois - A suburban man is recovering after his daughter saved his life. “So they’re kind of probably sick of ‘Alice in Wonderland,’ but they’re sticking with it.Kandiss Hernandez helped Mary McCue save her dad's life last Friday at the Center Stage Theater in Naperville, which Hernandez runs.

“I’ve now done 90 Zoom classes with them,” Hernandez said. Since the quarantine the casts have worked together virtually to keep practicing their parts.

Each of the 29 casts will perform the show without an audience, but it will be recorded. At the end of July, the Kidz Kabaret students involved in “Alice in Wonderland Jr,” the production that only had one public performance before the pandemic related closures were enacted, will get a chance to finally perform their roles on stage. “The kids that do come are so grateful to have a safe environment for their creative spirit and somewhere to spread their wings just a little bit because they’ve been so cooped up,” Hernandez said.Īside from the smaller camps, it is a quiet summer at the normally busy Center Stage. Parents do not come in the building when dropping off and picking up their children. Floor markings indicate the six feet of distance they must maintain. The kids and camp counselors wear face masks and/or face shields. This year, the enrollment is limited to nine. Normally about 25 students register for each Kidz Kabaret summer camp session. “We’re just going to stay dark all summer, besides our summer camps.” If I can only have 25 people in the house, their tickets would be $250. “But the licensing for these programs are between $2,500-$3,000. Hernandez said if it weren’t for the licensing fees, “we’d be doing shows and I’d be working with these kids. We would lose more money by doing that show. That means we could have 25 people in that audience,” she said. Even at now, Phase 4, 50 or less, you have to take off your 25 kids that are on stage. “But it does not just make financial sense to move forward unless you can have an audience. The dances for the shows were done, she said, and the actors would have learned their lines and music on their own, coming together a week or two before each show opened to rehearse. So really who loses in that is the actors.”Įarlier in the spring, the theater had been hopeful the shows could go on, casting both via virtual auditions. And I think we would be losing more money than we would if we just don’t do anything. “It kind of sounds like it doesn’t make sense if what we’re trying to do is make money, we should be doing shows,” Hernandez said. To pay the rights for a show and not really have an audience for it, it just didn’t make sense to me.” “We have been at zero income for four months. “The rights cost quite a bit of money,” she said. (Center Stage Theater)Īt Center Stage Theater in Naperville, it was the end of May - just as the state was entering Phase 3 - when executive director Kandiss Hernandez made the decision to cancel the two shows it had for slated for July: “High School Musical 2” and “The Who’s Tommy.” They just don’t want to be surprised.ĭaphne Lamesh as the Queen of Hearts in the Kidz Kabaret production of “Alice in Wonderland Jr.” The show had only one live performance at Center Stage Theater in Naperville in March before the venue closed during to the coronavirus pandemic. He said theaters want to work with the state to reopen safely. Johnson said it’s hard to work with the uncertainty. That’s why we’re pushing to at least get some understanding.” If the theaters aren’t open with capacity, they don’t want to release the new movies and our livelihood is new movies,” Johnson said. The more cities and states call for greater reduced capacity at the venues, the film companies adjust their release schedules, he said.

#KIDZ KABARET MOVIE#

“We’re very pleased that it’s taking that spot, but it’s not your big summer tentpole movie as we call it, but it’s a real nice warm up act,” Johnson said. The first new movie opens July 10, the Russell Crowe thriller “Unhinged.” “So essentially I’m totally willing to open up at a loss if it’s because we’re ramping up to those new pictures and everything. It’s not like opening all these theaters is going to be a big profitable venture, but what it does is it gives us the appropriate ramp up to when we do get the new pictures and are able to play the new products,” he said. I’m going to reach back to the state and see if there’s some guidance that we can use or count on. “They had talked about something maybe mid July.

Kidz kabaret