News

It’s Time for Happiness and Portland Ovations to Return to the Stage

It’s been entirely too long since we’ve had live anything — live music, live musicals, live comedy shows, live cabaret shows — anything. And one of the biggest supporters of music and the arts in Portland and throughout Maine (which is a melting pot for music and the arts in and of itself) is Portland Ovations.

Back in March, Portland Ovations turned 90 years old — a HUGE feat. And even though they knocked it out of the park with their virtual POP90 celebration, let’s be real — a virtual celebration for such a milestone isn’t exactly how you want to see it go down. But that’s the world we and Portland Ovations has lived in…

…until now. Because last night during their “Screen to Stage” virtual event, Portland Ovations announced that they’re through with virtual events — because THEY’RE BACK!

Live, in-person, on-stage shows, according to the Portland Ovations website, will kick off this Fall, with the Pacifica Quartet rocking the Merrill stage on Wednesday, October 20 at 7p! From there, the shows just keep on coming — a re-scheduled (multiple times, according to the Executive Artistic Director for Ovations, Aimee Petrin) cabaret-type show starring Alan Cumming and Ari Shapiro, new shows like Cartography and classics like RENT (which is celebrating 25 years!)

The best part? When you check out the Portland Ovations website, you’ll see a bunch of shows and performances already listed — and that’s only the first half of the season! Aimee mentioned they’re still putting shows together for the second half of the season, as well as seeing how the whole reopening of the world goes in general before announcing a whole smorgasbord of shows.

Aimee actually spoke to us and dove into everything involving making the transition back to the stage from virtual performances, as well as gave an inside peek on what some of the newer shows consist of, and more (including a bit of an exclusive announcement just made to us!) Listen below!