The Mobile Arts Council is preparing to call off the in-person version of its signature fall fundraiser, the Throwdown, as rising COVID-19 case counts make an indoor gathering of several hundred people increasingly untenable this year.
“Nobody wants to make that call yet, but we need to already be planning for it and have our artists lined up at the end of this month, if that’s happening. We’re already behind,” said MAC Executive Director Lucy Gafford.
The Throwdown has become one of the most anticipated nights on Mobile’s arts calendar since it began in the fall of 2012, pairing a silent auction of donated artwork with a live juried arts competition, plus music, food and drinks. The event has outgrown several venues over the years, moving from its original home on Dauphin Street to the Alabama Contemporary Art Center, The Temple Downtown, 23 East at Brookley Aeroplex and most recently the Aircraft Pavilion at Battleship Memorial Park.
Beyond the camaraderie it fosters across Mobile’s arts community, the Throwdown is also MAC’s largest single source of revenue. “It’s always our biggest fundraiser and brings in about $15,000 to $20,000 a year. We are dependent on that money,” Gafford said.
September’s heat and humidity have always pushed the event indoors, but this year that requirement collides directly with public health guidance. Packing a crowd into an enclosed venue with recirculated air is not something organizers are willing to risk, and the pandemic-battered economy has made it harder to line up sponsors who typically help underwrite the event.
MAC’s board is expected to make a final call on the Throwdown’s fate at its next meeting on July 27. “I’m thinking, my feelings are we won’t do a physical event,” Gafford said.
That doesn’t mean the fundraiser disappears altogether. MAC already has artwork in hand from anonymous donors for the silent auction portion, and Gafford said the organization intends to move the bidding online regardless of what happens with an in-person gathering. Staff are also kicking around the idea of pairing the virtual auction with a livestreamed program in the spirit of a television broadcast, though details are still being worked out.
“We’re definitely going to at least move forward with a virtual silent auction fundraising event. We’re also thinking about something fun, like kind of a TV show approach and doing the auction with it, but we don’t know yet,” Gafford said.
The concept echoes MAC’s day-long Stream-A-Thon, staged on Giving Tuesday in 2019, when a rotating cast of local arts groups and individual artists appeared in a makeshift studio to showcase Mobile’s creative scene to an online audience. “It brings attention to the competing artists. We want that, but we have to be realistic and keep in mind the expense and the time,” Gafford said.
The stakes go beyond a single night of programming. Gafford said MAC’s annual operating budget runs around $280,000, with much of that money earmarked for specific initiatives rather than overhead. Losing the Throwdown’s proceeds would put pressure on programs such as ChARTing New Directions, which serves underprivileged youth and has already had to adapt to the pandemic by having teachers deliver art supplies and masks to students and lead instruction over Zoom.
A recent infusion of federal relief has eased some of that pressure. “Thankfully we got [National Endowment for the Arts] funding from the CARES grant, $50,000, and that just came through a couple of weeks ago. So, that kind of covers us where we’re OK if we’re not going to have the Throwdown this year,” Gafford said. She added that MAC is open to hearing ideas from the community about how to preserve some version of the event’s spirit even without a physical gathering.
The Throwdown’s likely cancellation is part of a broader retreat by Mobile-area performing arts groups this year, as community theaters weigh the financial and logistical toll of staging productions during a pandemic against the risk to casts, crews and audiences.
Joe Jefferson Players has already scrapped its planned production of “Sister Act: The Musical,” which was originally scheduled for late spring, pushed back to fall, and ultimately cancelled outright in June. The theater’s production of “Evil Dead: The Musical” was also called off, before the show ever reached auditions. In a statement, the JJP board said it hopes to revisit both productions once conditions allow.
Playhouse in the Park has postponed its staging of “Beauty and the Beast” indefinitely, with new dates to be announced once officials determine it is safe to bring audiences back into the venue.
In Fairhope, Theatre 98 has pushed its production schedule back until spring 2021. Patrons who bought 2020 season tickets will keep their seats for the rescheduled shows and will be notified once new dates are set. The delay also means Theatre 98’s annual Meeting and Membership Gala, usually held during the first week of November, will not take place this year.
For community theaters across the region, the cancellations represent more than lost ticket revenue. Casts, crews and directors typically volunteer significant hours of rehearsal and preparation with no expectation of pay, driven instead by the payoff of a finished production and an appreciative audience. That reward has been put on hold indefinitely as the region’s arts organizations wait out the pandemic.