Diners crowded the restaurant. Music from the band filled the room. For Jonny Waters & Co., it was just another spring night entertaining folks on the Outer Banks.

Except it wasn’t. This was no ordinary show at Basnight’s Lone Cedar Cafe. The first weekend of March 2020 was filled with dread and uncertainty. The coronavirus was spreading. A lockdown was coming.

“You could tell that people were on edge,” Waters recalls. “It was the weirdest gig we’ve ever played just because of that social dynamic, and it was this unspoken elephant in the room. I’ll never forget that.”

The shutdown orders that came one week later, from coast to coast, chased musicians off stages, actors out of theaters, comedians away from clubs. But some of the light now seen at the end of this coronavirus tunnel is a spotlight, shining once again on performers who are overjoyed to be sharing their craft with audiences who are overjoyed to see them.

Comedian Greg Smrdel, who missed a regular summer of stand-up at the Outer Banks Comedy Club, traveled to Cleveland in March of 2021 for four shows that he’ll never forget.

“It was my first time doing it in over a year, and for (the audience) it was maybe their first time at a comedy club in over a year. So it was kind of like this bonding, this shared experience that we all had,” Smrdel says. “I think that’s what really helped make those shows go so much smoother and be as great as they were, the fact that we were all out doing something that we weren’t able to do for such a long time.”

That shared experience is also what Jeff Whiting missed most in the last year, and he has the rather important job of reconnecting local audiences with an Outer Banks treasure this summer: Whiting is the director and choreographer of “The Lost Colony” production in Manteo.

“There’s nothing quite like experiencing a show together,” Whiting says. “We’ve been relegated to watching movies on by ourselves or with small groups that we’re quarantining with, and I’ve definitely missed the collective experience, sharing the energy. And there’s the idea that this is only happening right now and only we get to see it.”

What once was Lost…

Whiting chatted with Coastal Life from his office at the corner of Broadway and 48th Street in New York City about a week before heading to the beach to put together his vision for “The Lost Colony.” The 49-year-old director and choreographer started acting at the age of 10 and has been in show business ever since, making the pandemic all the more painful to experience.

“To see all of Broadway completely shut down, the streets of New York be empty…” he says. “It’s been absolutely devastating not to be able to do what we’ve been doing for so many years, so it’s thrilling to be able to bring ‘The Lost Colony’ and so many other shows back.”

Heralded as the nation’s longest-running outdoor symphonic drama, “The Lost Colony” was an unstoppable production for the last 83 years. Until COVID.

Just as the story shares a new beginning for the 117 English men, women, and children in the New World, this year’s production of “The Lost Colony” marks a rebirth for the local entertainment industry. Whiting speaks excitedly of telling the story in a brand-new way, with a new score from Broadway composer Sam Davis and new visual devices welcoming crowds back to the spectacular spot along with the sound.

“I drove down from New York and drove right to the theater and I got to witness the sunset at the Waterside Theatre all by myself,” Whiting says of his first-ever visit to the Outer Banks. “I was just overcome with the view there and this magnificent space and the giant audience. I was so impacted by just the beauty of that landscape and knowing the historical context of what happened there so many years ago.”

It’s a lot of history to pack into a two-hour show. It’s also a lot of practice to pack into a month. Rehearsals began May 1 ahead of the May 28 opening night. The auditions at the end of February proved interesting for everyone involved, with this year’s cast offering a mix of returners and newcomers all eager for work.

“We did a number of in-person auditions, and almost every actor who came in the door was like, ‘I can’t believe it, this was my first audition in over a year,’ ” Whiting recalls. “Auditioning is a skill. You do come out of practice if you aren’t doing it every day. There are actors who wisely, all through quarantine, kept singing their music and kept performing in their living rooms or bedrooms, but it’s different doing it in front of people. It comes back to you quickly, but I think there’s some rust on everybody.”

Something to smile about

Smrdel, who has been doing stand-up for 13 years, was worried about being rusty when he did his first shows in more than a year. Would the timing be there? Would the audience be ready to relax and enjoy?

“As soon as I got on stage and started talking, there was no rust. There was no hesitation. All the butterflies went away,” Smrdel says. “It was like riding a bike, I guess. Once the muscle memory kicked in, it was pretty easy.”

No, the challenging part was simply waiting for the moment to arrive. Thanks to a buddy in the comedy scene named Kevin Whelan– who just recently had done HIS first show in more than a year – Smrdel got a big dose of self-doubt before taking the mic and talking to his audience.

“I said, ‘Kevin, how did it go?’ And he goes, ‘Don’t worry, you’re going to suck. And here’s the most important thing, you’re going to suck more than you think you’re gonna suck,’ ” Smrdel says with a laugh. “That’s all I thought about when the lights went down.”

Instead, Smrdel knocked his set out of the park, then enjoyed a moment of revenge when introducing Kevin to the audience: Smrdel told the story and then instructed the crowd not to laugh at any of Kevin’s jokes.

Smrdel missed that back-and-forth with the audience and fellow entertainers during the pandemic. He got his start in stand-up after doing a morning radio show, and in the past year, he’s had fun with the launch of Radio Free Outer Banks. But with radio, you never know what the audience is thinking as the words head over the airwaves.

Those first comedy shows this March reminded Smrdel how much he loves stand-up and how much he’s looking forward to performances at the Outer Banks Comedy Club (in the Kill Devil Hills Comfort Inn) and at the trivia nights he hosts at The SandTrap Tavern and Mulligan’s, plus special events he emcees.

“It was kind of ‘out of sight, out of mind,’ but once I got back on that stage again, it was like, ‘Oh, I gotta do this more often,’ ” Smrdel says.

Singin’ the blues

Counting both solo gigs and performances with his band, Waters estimates he lost more than 100 shows in the past year. Outdoor concerts were still feasible in some cases – mostly private parties since restaurants still had limited capacity – but suddenly, Waters was awash in free time.

He made the most of those open nights.

“For a lot of people and especially for me, the things that we have a hard time prioritizing that we know we should, it almost forced us to do that,” Waters says of the pandemic. “It almost forced family time, and forced less work, and more life in a lot of ways. I hope it has some residual effects going forward in how people choose to spend their time.”

Without gigs five nights a week last summer, Waters could work out two hours a day. He could enjoy hobbies like skateboarding and mountain biking. He could work on his doctorate degree without sacrificing sleep. Waters also counts himself fortunate to have a regular job – he teaches social studies classes at First Flight High School – which means he wasn’t scrambling for a paycheck like so many others in the arts.

And there was still plenty of music-making happening. Suddenly, this talented musician was a mainstay again at Coastal Family Church in Nags Head, not only performing but also producing. He worked on his own songs and videos.

“I was actually able to focus on different things, which is something I’d wanted to do for a long time,” Waters says. “It kind of freed me up musically to work on these things I’ve been neglecting because I was always out playing a show.”

Still, Waters was excited to see booking requests start trickling in earlier this year, then flood in as warmer weather approached, more people got vaccinated and COVID restrictions eased. He only had one free weekend all spring and sees summer being “busier than any summer we’ve seen in a really long time for anybody in hospitality.”

Jonny Waters & Co. started practicing again in February after taking a few months off, ready once again to have audiences jamming to the group’s feel-good songs.

“We’re a blues-rock, reggae rock band that plays some country and pop by request or just for the heck of it,” Waters says with a laugh when describing his sound. “I now focus on just doing what medicates me and what I feel like should medicate people. For me, blues music and reggae music is what has always spoken to me.”

After the last year, there’s no doubt that audiences are ready for musical medication and getting healthy doses of laughter as the best medicine.

Author: Steve Hanf

Steve Hanf is a former professional sportswriter who teaches the journalism classes at First Flight High School. The dormant Nike Running Club app on his phone offers a reminder of the seven half-marathons and one full marathon he completed … several years ago.