The Cabaret donation page

To Our Cabaret Community,

We need your support and understanding now like never before. Therefore, we are kicking off the Save the Cabaret 2020 Campaign today with the release of our own mini-documentary. Our goal is to raise a minimum of $5,000 a month so we can pay our rent and cover some other essentials. After the presidential election, we hope the emergency funding bill for small businesses (that has been held up in congress) will be approved so that we can survive until we can safely re-open.

As you may have heard, Phase 3 of Connecticut’s re-opening rolled out on October 8. However, it restricts the capacity of venues to 50% which has a near-impossible challenge to small venues like the Cabaret. Furthermore, phase 3 prohibits any performance that includes singing. Obviously, we cannot offset this seating capacity reduction by increasing the price of a ticket by 100%. We are working on ideas to re-open The Little Mermaid in December with pre-recorded singing, and a 30% COVID ticket surcharge, 30% reduction in production costs, and a combination of a 20% reduction in employee pay and a 20% reduction in what is already a small staff. If this works out, our next plan is to re-open our popular Decades in Concert: Sounds of the 70’s early in the new year.  Hopefully, after that, we will be able to start reversing the ticket surcharge and other budget cuts as we climb out of the grips of the COVID-19 pandemic.

We cannot sugarcoat the fact that after over 40 years of entertaining Fairfield County and beyond, the Downtown Cabaret Theatre is in real danger of closing. If you’re able to, please support the Save the Cabaret 2020 campaign each month until we see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Now, we’re extremely excited to share with you a mini-documentary by our very own Phill Hill. Some of our company actors and directors have taken the time to discuss onstage mishaps, their favorite roles, the best part of rehearsals, their favorite memories, and more. It will give you a peek behind the curtain and show a side to the actors and directors you don’t get to see on stage.

But first, a huge THANK YOU to our incredible sponsors:

R.D. Scinto Inc
People’s United Bank,
Faxon Law Group
The State of CT DECD
The Federal SBA

…and to former employee Katherine Kimura who donated $5,000 in June which will now be called Kimura Month! Thank you, Kathrine.

And thank you all for your support.

Hugh Hallinan | Executive Director