WEST SPRINGFIELD – After months of perpetual hardship, the Majestic Theater has officially disclosed a reopening plan for 2021.

The theater, which has been closed since March 14, 2020, due to the pandemic, will reopen on June 5. The first part of the plan, according to Producing Director Danny Eaton, is to finish the final 3 ½ weeks of a play called “The Pitch.” The production is a six-week performance that was cut short at the beginning of 2020.

In July and August, the theater will then host a full slate of summer concert series, as well as performances from their Majestic Children’s Theater, and other open mic and improvisation events. In September, they plan on opening their 25th season with five different performances – three musicals, one comedy and one comedy/drama. A few of their performances originally scheduled for 2021 will move to the beginning of 2022.

“Our initial thinking was we would be able to reopen in January [2021],” said Eaton. “We were in fairly good cash position at the time that we closed.”

Just through their own bank account alone, Majestic was able to pay their employees through April. Once the account ran dry, Eaton applied for a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan for $116,000, as well as a Small Business Administration (SBA) loan.

“We also furloughed almost everyone – I furloughed myself – so folks could collect unemployment” said Eaton. “So that’s been helpful to everyone.”

In order to have this reopening opportunity, the theater also spearheaded their annual Corvette raffle. In past years, they would have conducted this raffle at either the Big E or the Holyoke Mall. Due to large expenses however, the theater has recently decided to host the campaign online.

“Everybody who has ever bought a raffle ticket over the past 25 years, we have their name and address in our system,” said Eaton. “So we send them a brochure about the raffle every year, and that was very successful.”

Majestic is also looking into other PPP loans from federal and state stimulus packages. Back in late December, Congressional leaders hashed out a new PPP loan program for entertainment venues, which included $15 billion in relief.

“The nice thing about the PPP loan is much of it can be forgiven depending how you use it,” said Eaton. “We have our auditors working on our original PPP loan of $116,000, and I think that virtually all of that is going to be forgiven.”

Eaton said that the theater has stayed in touch with their audience base as much as possible, and told Reminder Publishing that any donation to the theater would be heavily appreciated.

“We have a really great audience base, and they’ve been very supportive,” said Eaton. “I think that once we’re able to reopen fully, we’re going to be gangbusters. I think people are so interested in getting back to normal.”

What makes Majestic so unique, according to Eaton, is the relationship it has with its audience during a play or concert performance. This reason alone is mainly why his team has strayed away from conducting performances over Zoom. With no audience, Eaton believes that the spirit of theater is absent.

"If you take that audience away, you don’t really have a theater…you just have a rehearsal,” said Eaton. “That’s what makes us unique; that live audience. We’re not television, we’re not film.”

Majestic will have limited box office hours until April, but people can still contact the theater whenever they want by calling their phone number or sending an email. The box office will be open with normal hours on May 1, according to their website. The theater will mail subscribers with any updates or changes in the performance schedule.

You can donate to Majestic and/or join the mailing list by visiting their website here:  https://www.majestictheater.com/ Updates on their reopening plan are also included on the site.