The Lyric Theatre is preparing for its first live production since March as “Get Smart” is scheduled to take the stage Friday, Nov. 6 through Sunday, Nov. 8.
In March, the Lyric Theatre had just wrapped up its performances of “Nunsense Jamboree” and was full steam ahead toward April’s scheduled production “Get Smart.” Then the COVID-19 outbreak brought those plans – and everything scheduled through the summer – to a screeching halt.
“It feels great to be doing the show, it feels really fantastic,” said Larry Mathis, director of ‘Get Smart.’ “The actors are very, very excited and we have a large cast. It’s going to be really funny and that’s by design. We want people to laugh. With this COVID thing hanging on and hanging on, we want people to come in and sit down and forget it and have a good time.”
Due to social distancing, the set for ‘Get Smart’ will be “unique to anything the folks who have come to the Lyric have ever seen,” Mathis said.
“Our ticket agents automatically space people for us as they buy tickets, so the question then became what do you do with the actors on stage?” Mathis added. “In a play, traditionally the actors are fairly close together. We’ve managed to design and build a set that allows for social distancing. There are a few exceptions where social distancing is violated but we have some special things we do so that we can make it work.”
Four shows are currently slated for Friday evening, Saturday afternoon, Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon.
With the Lyric essentially closed the last few months, Mathis said, “We’ve given the Lyric a big cleaning and sanitized it and handled some maintenance things. We’ve also been preparing the set knowing that it was going to be a lot different than anything we’ve ever done. I’ve drawn I don’t know how many different sets to finally get to the one we have now.”
Follow BrownwoodNews.com for more information on “Get Smart” in the coming weeks.
Tickets are available at www.brownwoodlyrictheatre.com.