Artists, Patrons Embrace Vaccine Rules At Beverly's Cabot Theater

BEVERLY, MA — An evening of comedy with "Saturday Night Live" alum Jim Breuer on Aug. 6 marked the first major indoor entertainment act at Beverly's Cabot Street Cinema Theater since March 2020.

If you missed it, you probably missed your chance to see old SNL star at the historic North Shore venue.

Since then, the Cabot has followed the lead of many other entertainment venues in New England and instituted a guideline where all staff must be vaccinated against the coronavirus as of this month, and all patrons and performers must either show proof of vaccination or a negative test.

Breuer, on the other hand, is one of a small number of performers openly rebelling against similar policies, calling them "segregation" and refusing to play venues that require proof of vaccinations or the negative test from fans.

"That was our first show back and that was before we had those (coronavirus) policies in place," Cabot Executive Director Casey Soward told Patch on Tuesday. "We were able to have that show with Jim and his brand of comedy at the time. But based on what I saw, if our date had been later under these circumstances that would have been one of those places he was talking about that he would cancel.”

Breuer said during an extensive 20-minute rant on Facebook this weekend that he was canceling his shows at The Wellmont Theater in New Jersey and The Royal Oak Theater in Michigan because of their new vaccination policy, and will refuse to play any other venue with a similar virus-related mandate.

"I would rather go bankrupt, and make a stance, and not be segregated," said Breuer in the Facebook Live session where he referred to performers who agreed to the policy against their better judgments as "slaves to the dictatorship to keep you on top of that mountain."

Yet, while Breuer said he "will play backyards" to avoid the vaccine policies if he has to, Soward said it was some of the upcoming performers who came to the Cabot requesting the stricter guidelines.

"There were several artists we talked to who wanted to have these policies in place for the fall," he told Patch. "The more we talked to the artists we realized this was going to be a thing that many of them would be asking for."

Soward said the theater then surveyed the 50,000 people on its mailing list and "overwhelming the responses to the survey were that they would feel more comfortable if we had these policies in place."

Soward allowed there has been "a little bit of pushback" from patrons who were unvaccinated and did not want to be tested before a show, but that it was a small percentage of the ticket-buyers. The Cabot is offering refunds to anyone who objects to the policy and did not know about it at the time of ticket purchase.

"We're trying to work with people here," he said.

He said the security staff performs the vaccination-or-test check when patrons enter, and while it costs a little more money to hire enough staff to keep the lines moving, it is a small price to pay to keep the doors open and customers looking forward to coming through them after the theater went dark for 15 months at the outset of the pandemic.

"Anything can happen," he said. "If somebody in one of the bands or tours gets COVID, we will have to cancel or move a performance. I do expect that to happen at some point. But I do expect, from what the data tells me, we will have a fall season.

"It will be like unlike any fall season we've every hard, but I do think we can do these performances and have them safely."

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(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)

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