To paraphrase Gloria Gaynor, they would survive.
After a pandemic-ravaged 2020, a large segment of the local and national arts community tried to find their way back from the dark in 2021, and only late in the year began making serious inroads.
Movie theaters had new films. Live theater returned to the stage. Large crowds again gathered for major music concerts.
But there were changes. Some indoor crowds were limited. National Broadway tours were slow to get back on the road. Some venues retained their mask policy. And many of those accustomed to seeing the latest cinematic blockbuster at the cinema chose instead to stream it on their TV.
Blade feature writers recap the past 12 months, and what they bode for the year ahead.
THEATER
If 2020 was the year theater went dark, 2021 was the year the lights came back on — the spotlights, that is.
And along with the spotlights came the cameras, green screens, and web streams. Before organizers could make live theater go, well, live, they decided it was best to go digital and make performances available to view online.
With the busy theater performance schedule these past two months, it’s easy to forget that it wasn’t always this way. In fact it wasn’t this way for the most of the year.
The dawn of 2021 saw show organizers almost as uncertain about live theater’s return as they were the year prior, with all hope resting on the long-awaited coronavirus vaccine.
A trickle of live performances were allowed, but seating limitations kept audiences small while restraining general ticket sales. Theater directors, educators, and production staff members responded to these by pivoting to technology to livestream performances from their stages, or experiment to make film adaptations of popular works.
When we couldn’t sit in-person to watch shows, we got unique performances such as the University of Toledo’s award-winning film 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, which involved weeks of recording and experimentation with special effects that students had never used before, and the Toledo School for the Art’s first full-length film adaption of William Shakespeare's The Tempest for the school’s spring play – during which scenes were filmed in front of green screens and then edited together for a full show.
And audiences got to celebrate the Valentine Theatre’s belated 125th birthday with a streamed live show of renowned piano accompanist Seth Rudetsky and actor-singer-comedienne Ana Gasteyer, who performed the virtual improv show separately in their homes – a feat that was impossible in the past because of audio delays that have since been fixed with new computer software.
After pandemic restrictions were lifted this summer, the months that followed saw a resurgence of local performers returning to grace local stages — including the return of beloved shows, like the Village Players Theatre’s Nightfall With Edgar Allan Poe and the Toledo Repertoire Theatre’s A Christmas Carol, both of which went on a live-show hiatus in 2020.
But rather than unplugging the cameras and packing up the streaming equipment, organizers say it has instead found a place in the theater.
Benjamin Jameson, the Toledo Repertoire Theatre’s production manager, previously pointed out that there are still audience members who don’t feel comfortable with in-person performances, and streaming options allow them to still support the theater and see the shows. And as long as publishing groups still allow the streaming option, it will continue.
Besides, with thousands of dollars raised and donated to theaters to purchase the equipment, it might as well get some use.
With coronavirus case resurgences and new variants being discovered, theater organizers say they will need to keep their options open to continue meeting audience’s needs for good theater.
Plus, streaming helps keep the theater lights on.
ART
The Toledo art scene sprouted new attractions and exhibitions in 2021, as the humanities hustled to emerge victorious over the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
Thanks to the hard work and imagination that has defined the Toledo creative spirit for generations, we can once again say “We’re No. 1!” in something besides new business investment (thank you for that, Site Selection magazine). The new mural on the riverfront is on track to be the largest painted art display in America.
The construction of the Glass City River Wall earned Toledo national coverage for both its size and its purpose; it was painted to salute the original Native Americans who settled along the Maumee River thousands of years ago. Featuring 28 grain silos, 170,000 square feet of concrete, and about 5,000 gallons of paint, the Glass City River Wall is one of those public art displays that just instills Toledo pride.
Toledo Museum of Art spooked the city with its exhibit Supernatural America: The Paranormal in American Art, which included works of art devoted to ghosts, hauntings, and the unknown. Museum Curator Lauren Applebaum also got a nod in Hyperallergic magazine for her show Radical Tradition: American Quilts and Social Change, which the online magazine cited as one of 2021 top 10 art exhibits in America. Still worth checking out is the hypnotic and hallucinatory film installation Doppelganger, which runs through May; it’s a science fiction short that delivers a mystifying experience that stays with you long after you leave the gallery.
20 North Gallery, Toledo’s longest running independent art gallery, had some great exhibits this year, including its Shadows and Enlightenment exhibit and their current show The Alchemist’s Dream: Letts, Marino and Muir.
Toledo got a great new arts gallery in the form of Just Jerry’s, a blue collar-spirited exhibition space located on Monroe Street at The Switchboard, next to Culture Clash. This regal old building – which was rumored to be a speakeasy for the Purple Gang back in the day – is perfect for an edgy art gallery, curated by noted Toledo artist and Village Idiot barkeep extraordinaire Jerry Gray.
The Arts Commission ended 2021 with a bang, announcing its annual Merit Awards, bestowing cash gifts to glass artist Hoseok Youn, writer Kimberly Mack, and to artists Ashley Pryor Geiger and Brenda Singletary for their contribution to local literary, performing and visual arts. 2021 was a good year for the Arts Commission, which saw its riverfront festival Momentum return to Promenade Park as well as the popular Art Loop program, which always shows off just how many creative people there are working and living in Toledo. Overall, 2021 was good year for local arts.
CLASSICAL MUSIC AND DANCE
Theaters might have gone dark, but the music in Toledo never stopped for the Toledo Symphony and the Toledo Opera.
It was just time to get creative. While the symphony sped up its implementation of livestreaming its performances and restricted the number of audience members in the Peristyle, it still hit all the right notes. The Toledo Opera tried to have a season but in the end couldn’t do so safely. But no one stopped singing: Instead, the resident artists went outdoors to deliver vocal fireworks in many different sites in popup performances.
In 2021, cases faded and vaccines became available, and it seemed as if we had beaten the virus.
So the symphony and the opera rolled out full seasons.
Back came the pops, chamber, and family series concerts, and of course Georg Friedrich Handel’s Messiah and the Nutcracker.
The KeyBank Pops saluted Tony Bennett and hosted Time for Three, a self-described “classically-trained garage band” of Charles Yang, Nicolas “Nick” Kendall, and Ranaan Meyer. The Anderson Family Events reached for the stars with Science and Symphony, where music, photography, and science collided in a big bang of entertainment and education, and brought back Christmas at the Peristyle.
The Buckeye Broadband & The Blade Chamber Series performed a tribute to Toledo’s Sister Cities, and teamed up with the Toledo Ballet for a special event, Coming Up for Air, which gave the ballet its first outing since the pandemic stopped them in their tracks.
Particularly exciting, said Zak Vassar, the symphony’s executive director, was the return of the ProMedica Masterworks Series with pianist Sara Davis Buechner and along with Edward Elgar’s Enigma Variations, and Johann Sebastian Bach’s Orchestral Suite No. 3, and the premiere of the Piano Concerto by Florence Beatrice Smith Price, a Black composer of the early 20th century whose music has been gaining audiences since.
“It’s like you discovered a new favorite classic,” Vassar said.
Meanwhile, over at the Toledo Opera Association, executive director Suzanne Rorick and her crew had weathered the shutdown.
“We kept working the whole time,” she said of the pandemic-forced closure, “and we kept tweaking. I’m very proud of how it turned out last year.”
But when 2021 dawned, she was determined to have a season, “even if it was just us in the theater,” she said in an earlier interview.
And the season opened up with a bang, staging Giuseppe Verdi’s Il Trovatore, with Adrian native Leah Crocetto, Carl Tanner, Kyle Pfortmiller, Deborah Nansteel, and Allen Michael Jones. The groundbreaking opera Blue and the sturdy Verdi La Traviata will complete the season
Not only that, the resident artists, soprano Grace Wipfli, mezzo Katherine Kincaid, tenor Fran Daniel Laucerica, baritone Andrew Payne, and pianist Mercy Olson, not only went back out into the community for popup performances, but went back to schools for Opera on Wheels.
While the advent of the omicron variant still has the performing arts nervous, be sure local musical organizations will keep the music going any way they know how.
MUSIC
Live music blossomed again in 2021.
The green light for venues to re-open in Ohio arrived in February, setting the stage for concert series of all sizes. By March, buds of live entertainment sprouted in venues of all sizes.
JNP Concerts president John Nittolo, who books performers for Centennial Terrace and the Northwest Ohio Rib Off, told The Blade in July that promoters were booking shows for the summer in hopes for restrictions to be lifted.
“We were happy the governor pulled the trigger,” Nittolo said. “It was a nail-biter going into the spring knowing we had shows booked for the summer already.”
By July, the Glass City was off to the races with the return of high-wattage concerts with lineups as star-studded as KISS and Gwen Stefani.
ProMedica’s Summer Concert Series at Promenade Park filtered in massive crowds as Stefani and Chris Young took to the stage in celebration of the city hosting the 2021 Solheim Cup.
The resurgence of the summer concert series was significant; it brought in 12 concerts of 13 musical genres in 2019, ultimately attracting nearly 90,000 people from 39 states.
This year the region had nearly 30 major shows, including Chase Rice at Lucas County Fairgrounds for Northwest Ohio Rib Off, Train at the Toledo Zoo Amphitheater, and Keith Urban and Blake Shelton at the Bash on the Bay Country Music Festival on Put-in-Bay.
The country music festival hit its capacity of 15,000 and generated nearly $16 million for the island.
Locals also attended concert series such a Jazz in the Garden, which is a community staple held at the Toledo Botanical Garden for nearly 24 years. The recurring series has been known for drawing crowds as large as 400-plus. This year’s lineup included Ramona Collins Quintet, Gene Parker Quintet with Lauren Smith, and the Zen Zadravek Quartet.
The Olander Park’s Sunset Serenades, Mercy Health’s Music at the Market, Levis Square lunchtime concerts, and others also set the stage to liven the summer with more entertainment options.
Bars, too, ushered local musicians into their fold offering weekly performances. Both Majestic Oak Winery and Sixth-Fifths Distilling were among the many to open their doors.
In short, live music was back in the second half of 2021. The hope is that it can stay that way.
MOVIES AND STREAMING
In 2019, the U.S. movie box office totaled more than $11 billion. This year it will be lucky to top $4 billion.
If 2020 was a bust — movie theaters nationwide were forced to close because of the pandemic, leaving some like AMC Entertainment facing bankruptcy — 2021 has largely been a rebuilding year, with audiences slowly returning to theaters.
In their stead, streaming was the biggest beneficiary, as platforms like Netflix, Disney+, Amazon, Hulu and most recently Paramount+ saw their subscriber numbers skyrocket as patrons decided it might be a safer bet to watch movies at home.
It didn’t help that some studios — chiefly Universal and Warner – made the controversial decision to release some of their biggest titles simultaneously to theaters and streaming platforms, or entirely on the latter.
What wasn’t released was delayed, yielding box office results from tepid (West Side Story) to tremendous (Spider-Man: No Way Home shattered December ticket sales numbers).
Still, theaters survived by employing a host of strategies. Drive-ins were once again relevant thanks to their built-in social distancing (and by showing vintage movies and filmed concert performances), while indoor theaters offered the novelty of letting people rent out an entire theater for themselves and 30 friends for less than $100.
Not all movie news came out of Hollywood in 2021. Indeed, northwest Ohio had its fair share of celluloid connections, including:
■ Vanessa Leonard took the Best of Show Award at the Up Next Film Festival in Atlanta for her film A Story Worth Living, which centers on depression. The film won a slew of other honors, including from film festivals in Denver, Las Vegas, Italy and Nassau. It screened locally at the Maumee Indoor Theatre and the KeyBank Discovery Theater.
■ Locally shot, Sons of Toledo, a short film project headed by Matt Foss, a University of Toledo associate theater professor, and Monty Cole, a University of Illinois-Chicago research scholar, aimed to show how the role of barbershops is heightened during instances of gun violence.
■ Michael DeSanto premiered his film A Heartfelt Change at the Maumee Indoor Theatre. It tells the story of Jake Lewis, who is troubleshooting his relationship with his girlfriend, Kara. The two break into a fight at the county fair, where they encounter “creepy puppets” who place a curse on Jake. He then has to spend the rest of the film as a puppet attempting to proclaim his love for Kara. DeSanto has primarily shown the work at film festivals, with a goal of finding backing for future projects.
■ September saw the arrival of the documentary We Are The Troopers from co-writers Guy Stout of Toledo and Steve Guinan. It recounts the story of the Toledo Troopers, Toledo’s all-female football team, who won seven consecutive national championships during the 1970s.
■ Jim Nowak, a part-time filmmaker and full-time serviceman from Toledo, released his 53-minute documentary Glimpses from the Great War early in the year. It tells the story of World War I through the eyes of Pvts. Howard Sweet and William Claus, both Toledoans who served together in the Ohio National Guard’s 37th “Buckeye” Division with the 135th Field Artillery from 1917 to 1919.
■ On Feb. 20 Nate Thompson posted six minutes and 23 seconds of horror on YouTube, just before his short film, Cult Affairs, hit the the festival circuit. Shot entirely in Toledo and featuring a northwest Ohio-based cast, it tells the story of a gagged and bound "Mr. James," whose fate is in the hands of a nameless villain with an important question: “Do you believe in the devil?”
TV AND RADIO
The coronavirus pandemic didn’t stop in 2021, and neither did the news – but then, that’s in the name, isn’t it?
The year saw a flurry of major and long-standing personnel changes in local media.
After 27 years of service, WTOL 11’s chief meteorologist Robert Shiels left the channel in July, with plans to pursue a career in real estate with the Rigali Grier Group at Danberry Realtors. He was replaced by Chris Vickers, who has has been with the station for 13 years and formerly served as its morning meteorologist. Ryan Wichman replaced Vickers.
WTVG-TV, Channel 13 news director Mel Watson retired on Dec. 13, after more than three decades working at five television stations as producer, newscast executive producer, special projects/investigative executive producer, and news director. She became Channel 13’s news director in August, 2018.
Just months earlier, in September, Channel 13 launched a new weekday newscast. 13abc Action News at 4 p.m. reunited the anchor team of Tony Geftos and Christina Williams. Geftos anchored the weekend morning show from 2012 to 2019, after Williams became the weekend evening anchor. They were joined by meteorologist Dan Smith, who presents the daily weather forecast at noon.
Kristi Leigh, a former Channel 11 evening news co-anchor who left for the Sinclair Broadcast Group-owned, California-based KMPH-TV in 2020, was one of the more than 400 employees laid off by Sinclair in March. The broadcasting company, which operates 186 television stations across 87 markets in the United States, reduced its workforce by roughly 5 percent. Leigh has since appeared on InfoWars and founded her own independent news channel at kristileightv.com.
In perhaps the year’s most unusual media story, Channel 11 sports reporter Kristi Kopanis had a surgery to remove a 27-pound cyst from her abdominal cavity. She’s fine, fortunately.
The local radio scene made some noise of its own. In March, iHeartMedia Toledo debuted Fox Sports 1230 The Gambler (WCWA-AM), a sports station focused on gambling, fantasy recommendations, and the latest sports headlines. The move followed a 2020 announcement of an expanded partnership with sports betting network VSiN that would make available on iHeart stations in 2021 content previously restricted to paid subscribers.
Also in March, Josh David launched a hyperlocal internet radio station specializing in bluegrass and country music: River Rat Country, named after the northwest Ohio residents that spend their summers by the Maumee River. It built on the success of Towpath Radio, an oldies station that has drawn up to 1,300 listeners a month.
David and his small team epitomize the growing popularity of internet radio stations, which have only been around since 1993. According to David, internet radio has given him a way to recover the live and local character of the terrestrial radio of old.
First Published December 26, 2021, 1:30 p.m.
