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[0:00] Mo Brady: You're listening to The Ensemblist, the only podcast that shows you Broadway from the inside out. Welcome, I'm Mo Brady.

[0:15] Mo Brady: With the coronavirus spreading across the country, national tours have been some of the first productions to fall in its wake. Yes, we've seen two Broadway shows closing so far, but it's national tours that have been closing more, meaning musical theater performers who were planning to be performing in venues across the country are suddenly out of work. One of those performers is Tatiana Lofton. She was a member of the company of the Once on This Island tour, which unexpectedly shuttered after its Las Vegas run last week. She was gracious enough to get on the phone with me to talk about how she heard the news and what she's doing now. Here's our conversation.

[0:58] Mo Brady: Hi, would you introduce yourself and where are you living right now?

[1:02] Tatiana Lofton: Hey, my name is Tati. My full name is Tatiana Lofton, but my nickname is Tati. And I was on tour with Once on This Island, and now I am kicking it at home in Delaware with my family.

[1:17] Mo Brady: All right, so what was your role on the Once on This Island tour?

[1:21] Tatiana Lofton: So I was an offstage singer slash I was just a swing who understudied two principals, three ensemble ladies, and then I also sang in the booth.

[1:35] Mo Brady: So okay, when did the tour go out?

[1:38] Tatiana Lofton: We started rehearsal in September and we shipped out the last week of September, but we had our opening in October.

[1:47] Mo Brady: October, okay. And where was the last city that you performed in?

[1:51] Tatiana Lofton: We were in Vegas.

[1:53] Mo Brady: How far were you into your Vegas run when you had to stop performances?

[1:57] Tatiana Lofton: We did six out of eight. So we were about to start our double day on Sunday. And then it's kind of weird how it happened because Vegas wasn't shut down. So our shows were still happening. And if we as a company probably wanted to do the shows on Sunday, we would have. But I think as a company, we just didn't feel comfortable. And there were some people who were out of the show that day. So we had a rehearsal, like a safety rehearsal, kind of like a pre put in for some people who were doing new tracks. The combination of safety of the show and just like uncertainty of like what was happening in the world. We collectively as a company played that hand of like, we don't feel safe to stop it. But nobody was like, you can't perform anymore.

[2:51] Tatiana Lofton: You are six shows through the week. It is Sunday morning. So you're at a rehearsal that morning and still not sure if you're going to be performing that afternoon. Is that right?

[3:03] Tatiana Lofton: I guess we're just in a weird position because we saw the whole like everybody shut down. And at a certain point, it was like us and maybe like two other tours that were still performing. And that felt crazy because we were just like, well, if everybody else isn't performing, we shouldn't be performing like as actors. But obviously, we don't know what goes into everything with producers. And our producers sent us an email saying that the show is happening. Both shows are happening Sunday. And we were like, OK, I guess we're going to work. And they based that decision off of Vegas had not declared a state of emergency or didn't have the like, you know, a lot of places were shut down because you can't have more than 500 people meet. And so we were planning on going to work.

[3:45] Mo Brady: It is decided on Sunday morning that you're not going to do the show. And then what happens?

[3:51] Tatiana Lofton: So then we pack up our stuff on tours. The last show you do, you have to pack up your trunk. You have to pack up your makeup bins, your station, tip your dressers. So we did that. I just packed my stuff up. I didn't really bring anything with me important because I was like, OK, well, I'll get it soon because we'll be back to it soon. So I didn't like freak out or anything. I was just like, OK, I'll just put this stuff here and get it later.

[4:21] Mo Brady: Was it supposed to be were you supposed to have a layoff week or where were you supposed to be performing the following week?

[4:26] Tatiana Lofton: This week that we did not work, we were supposed to be in Spokane and Folsom, California. We had a split week. But then after that, we had a two week break. And then we were supposed to start tour back in L.A. at the Amundsen. Our two week layoff just became a three week layoff. So it wasn't too much of a big deal. I was like, OK, well, I don't need this stuff and I'll get it in three weeks. So we just packed up our stuff and then we pretty much had the day off. And then everybody had their travel stuff ready for Monday or some people move their stuff to get out Sunday night.

[5:04] Mo Brady: Day off in Vegas. Not a bad thing to have. You fly where on Monday?

[5:09] Tatiana Lofton: I fly back to Philly, which is like the closest airport to me. And then I drove back to Delaware, which is where my family is.

[5:18] Mo Brady: Got it. So you are in Delaware. You have this two week layoff that is now a three week layoff. But everything's sort of you think that in three weeks you'll be back in L.A. performing at the Amundsen.

[5:29] Tatiana Lofton: Yeah, that's the plan. I mean, obviously we all were looking at the state of, you know, the world. And I was like, three weeks sounds really ambitious. But our run in L.A. was five weeks. So we were kind of hopeful, like, OK, maybe it won't be all five weeks. Maybe this will knock us down and maybe we'll get to play like two weeks in L.A. and then finish the rest of the tour. But it definitely felt like we were going to go back to work. I mean, I don't think we all thought it was really realistic to be back at work on April 7th.

[6:05] Mo Brady: Sure. Not April 7th, necessarily. Right. But you'd pick up at some point of the L.A. run. Because how far were you scheduled out?

[6:11] Tatiana Lofton: We were. Our tour was actually short. We were finishing like mid-July. I think maybe July 12th or something.

[6:23] Mo Brady: Still a few months.

[6:26] Tatiana Lofton: Yeah, we had a few more months. Not like crazy, like not, you know, we weren't scheduled all the way up to like December, but definitely still some more time. So when did you find out that that wasn't going to be the case?

[6:35] Tatiana Lofton: They told us on Friday. It was so sad.

[6:39] Mo Brady: Was it like an email or a phone call?

[6:44] Tatiana Lofton: No. So we our company manager asked us to join in on a Zoom meeting. So we like all did that. I think there's like 50 people on the call. Trinity is, I'm going to guess, like one of our lead producers because we've seen him the most. He's so kind to us. He has a very big interaction with us. So he had us all on Zoom and just, you know, was really emotional about it just that they decided to close the tour. Because we were doing L.A. so up close and L.A. is going through such a like, I think they have the strictest guidelines, at least on Friday they did, that it just didn't seem probable that we would get to play there. And then also some of the other places we were playing, it seemed like they weren't going to be open or they were also going to have some strict rules. They felt like it was the best decision to cancel the whole thing just to finish it.

[7:40] Mo Brady: I mean, did you have any inkling that that was going to happen? Was there like text threads with other cast members or?

[7:45] Tatiana Lofton: I feel like the hopeful side of us were like, we're not closing. We'll do L.A. late and we'll come back. But then part of me was like, oh, they might close it because we only have till July. And even though it is still a few more months, it's not it's not that much, you know, it's not like we have dates till like 2021. Like we were done the middle of the summer, you know, it was a little I think I think overall it was unexpected, but I could see it happening. Like I could I really could see them making that hard choice, not because they wanted to, just because like, you know, we only have a few more weeks.

[8:14] Mo Brady: So how are you feeling now?

[8:26] Tatiana Lofton: I'm OK. I I've been feeling a lot of different things and just allowing myself to feel them. I honestly have been struggling a lot being on tour the second time because swinging is so difficult that has been weighing on my spirit the last few weeks because we just have been having so much stuff happen. We had like some replacements. I was in the show a lot. We were still doing swing ins. We were having our second cover put ins like there just was so much stuff that was still happening that, you know, when it was like, OK, it's done. I was like sad, obviously, because of the people. And I don't want anybody around me to be sad. But I also felt relieved because that like weight and that pressure of swinging.

I'm like, wow, like I didn't know when I would feel relieved from that. And it's here. Like, I thought that might be in July, but now it's like out of nowhere, March something. So it was a little shocking. I was like, oh, like it's it's actually over. I am sad because nobody ever wants it to end abruptly like that. You know, if you were to decide to leave, you would have your happy trails. You would have, you know, your friends and meet you out at a restaurant or a bar. People might write you a card. But we kind of just left. We didn't know that, you know, we didn't know that that was it. You know, that part of it is very, very sad.

[10:03] Mo Brady: Special thanks to Tatiana Lofton for sharing her stories with us today. The Ensemblist was produced today by me, Mo Brady. There are two great ways you can be helping The Ensemblist right now. One is by leaving us a rating and review on Apple Podcast, and the other one is by sponsoring us and becoming a Patreon member. You can do that at patreon.com slash The Ensemblist. Please subscribe or follow wherever you listen to podcasts, whether that be on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, or at Broadway Podcast Network's website, bpn.fm. And make sure you're following us on Instagram because we've somehow turned into a daily podcast and we have a lot of episodes out there now. This is the best way to learn about them. All right, take care. Bye.