Scott Moreau
A Lot Is Up in the Air

The purpose of this project is to provide a collection of transcriptions from the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. This project seeks to give a platform to all parts of the vocal performing arts to better understand the lived experiences and mentality of those professionals. In collecting stories from the COVID-19 pandemic Scott Moreau, actor and singer, shared his early experience and the difficult situation. Furthermore, we were able to speak again exactly one year after our initial interview and reflect back on the pandemic and lessons learned.

Scott Moreau at the Chocolate Church Performing Arts Center

Scott Moreau, actor and singer
Interviewed March 16, 2020

TB: First, thank you for speaking with me. I know that this is a very difficult time for you and our industry. To get started, could you tell me a bit about where you are in your career right now?

SM: Sure. As of this year, I've been performing professionally for 21 years. I graduated from Illinois Wesleyan in 2001, but my first professional job was in 1999. I took my equity card with Actors' Equity in 2011 to become part of the first national tour of Million Dollar Quartet, and that is a show that I've been doing since then. I am doing other shows, but I perform as Johnny Cash for the most part. In fact, by taking my union card, I've done 15 regional productions of Million Dollar Quartet, I think. While I was on tour, I created and then expanded my own tribute shows using Johnny's music and excerpts from both his autobiography and biographies about him. If I were to say that I have a side hustle, that would be it.
      Generally, I know my schedule a year and a half in advance, which allows me to schedule my side gig while maintaining my union benefits of my 401k, my pensions, and my health benefits. The way Equity works is that you have to work a certain amount of weeks to accrue your health benefits, which I believe is 12 weeks to get 6 months of coverage. So, I work very, very regularly as a union actor and in the interim, I have tribute shows that I do.

TB: Moving into our topic for today, can you describe where you were and how you realized that your life was going to be affected by the pandemic?

SM: We've all been paying attention to the news, and we know that there have been outbreaks. People have been trying to be careful, but everything has ramped up in the last week, maybe a week and a half. Eight-months-to-a-year ago, the producer that books my tribute shows had booked me for a week in South Texas—when I say South Texas, I mean 5 minutes from the border with Mexico. So, last week, I flew to San Antonio on March 2.  We did a great show at the Empire Majestic, which is a historic theater. The rest of the shows were in places like Donna, Weslaco, and San Benito. So we took the drive down there, and we were hearing all of these reports about things, talking about how we are to keep ourselves safe and protected.  
      As a tribute artist, I perform as Cash all the time; I never speak as myself. I have a tribute album that I recorded at Sun Studio in Memphis—where John and his original band recorded. Normally after shows, I go out and talk to the audience. I hope to sell some of these CDs which I usually do. They are mostly older people between the ages of 60 and 100. Sometimes, we have people out there who are World War II veterans.  
      On March 7, everything started coming in fast from the CDC and everywhere else about how serious this was. On that day, I had a gig cancelled. I was supposed to be going out to Nashville on March 20 for a nursing foundation event. So, I got word that it was cancelled. Less because they were concerned about the outbreak and more because they didn't want these nurses to be at a conference, they needed them to be at their own hospitals.  
      In about 20 minutes, I lost a job where the fee was $1,500. They were also paying all of my travel out there, meals and the hotels. That is about $2500 that I missed out on all said and done. Not only that, but I would have been able to sell my own CDs there. Of course, I can't project how much that would have been, but it would have been something.  
      Then immediately after that, I got an email from the producer I was working for doing these tribute shows, saying, "Effective today, no more meet and greets, no more CD sales. We can't risk it." Which I knew was correct and appropriate, but at the same time, now that I've lost this other job, now I'm being told I can't sell CDs and hopefully make $100 that night on top of my performing fee.  
      As time went by, I came back from Texas to New York. I took a quick trip up to Maine because my fiancé and I are getting married in September in my home state of Maine. We went up to see the venue, and we are getting worried that Columbia, Rutgers, and all these major universities are shutting down. That's when I got word from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign that they were closing down and my upcoming workshops with students were cancelled. That was another chunk of money that was taken away. So, in the span of three days, I lost $4,000 worth of gigs.  
      Yesterday, the CDC said it recommends no public meetings over 50 people for eight weeks. I have a contract starting on March 30 in Kansas City at a dinner theater. Two days ago, they were saying that they wouldn't close unless they're told they have to. Today, they announced that they are closed for a month. That's another gig that makes me $1,500 a week and gives me my health insurance. At this point, we don't know what is going to happen now. We could be pushed back a month, or we could be cancelled. A lot is up in the air.  

TB: That is really interesting, especially with your health insurance being determined by how many weeks you work. Do you know any more about that? Will it be mitigated for those being affected by this?

SM: They haven't mentioned it yet. There is a look-back period to see how much you've worked, which can help in these situations. Unfortunately, what a lot of people are running into right now is that they're on the cusp of running out of health insurance, and now these jobs are being cancelled. If they were close to getting their health insurance with their next contract, now that contract may be cancelled or cut short, and they won't make that health insurance cusp. But they haven't said much about it yet.
      One thing that was released yesterday was a petition to our state governments to create a bill to help these performers that have lost work. But I know that other bills are being proposed to help the independent contractors out there. They make up almost 40% of the workforce in this country. That is something Equity has been really pushing for too. Because even the states that pay the most through unemployment—I think it is something like $565 a week—if you consider the fact that most of these people are living in the most expensive places to live in the world, then most of their rents are about four times that a month. If they are working a Broadway minimum job—which I think is around $2,300 a week—to go from that to $565 is not comparable. And that is what they are trying to make legislators understand. This is a major, major crisis. Imagine what will happen when these people can't pay for anything.

TB: Can you talk to me a bit about how this has impacted your creative process?  

SM: Well, I don't have anything to prepare for now, and I probably won't have rehearsals to prepare for soon. But it really forces people to be extremely self-motivated. I'm trying to stay inside like I am supposed to. And I have instruments sitting around the house, so I pick those up, and I work on them. I'll take some online classes, look through some of my lesson books, and play them. If I'm going to be stuck here for longer than anticipated, I'm going to do that, and it is going to be helpful.
      In a sense, what it does is it puts you in a sort of professional purgatory. You don't really know what you are working toward because, at this point, auditions are being cancelled. So, even if I lose this job because it is cancelled, it is not like I can start auditioning for another job. Theaters that are on shaky footing are going to start closing down. So professionally, that's where it puts me, in this sort of purgatory.  
      I'm going to continue singing and playing and keeping my chops up at the same time. But we've all lost jobs, and there is nowhere to go. Even speaking about people in the service industry, if you are an actor on Broadway and laid off, you can go back to the restaurant you used to work for. Now you can't because they are all being closed down. Now you can't fall back on that because that is not there either.

TB: Could you tell me about how your life was different six weeks ago?

SM: Well, at the beginning of February, I was gearing up for all these gigs and I had some time off. I had just come back from being in Arizona doing a week of shows out there, which made a good amount of money. I was content to be here in our apartment in New York with my fiancé and doing some wedding planning.  
      I specifically booked a good amount of this work because not only do I love performing as Johnny Cash, but it meant that I was going to have some surplus money that I could contribute to all the planning for the wedding. Life looked pretty great and a little crazy on the travel side, but fruitful as far as artistic and financial fulfillment as well.

TB: So looking at this situation, what is something that you would say this pandemic has changed about you?

SM: I don't know that this is changed, but my parents are both in their mid-70s. And my mother has some issues with her immune system. So I am calling a lot more. I almost want to drive up there and be with them for a few days. I try to be with them as much as possible, but I'm certainly checking in on them more because clearly, they're much more susceptible than I. Thankfully, they live in a much less population-dense place because they live in rural Maine. I am always concerned about them, but my anxiety and concern toward their state have grown.  
      [It's] The same thing for my fiancé. She is a very strong woman that can take care of herself. I'm certainly not the breadwinner in the relationship. She works in the New York media, and that's something that is not going anywhere. So, whether I like it or not, she's going to be at work every day. Most of the time, the reality is because she works in radio—two days a week, she is in a studio where she is talking into a microphone, and there are not many people around. But the other three days of the week, she will be out in the field and interviewing people, which means she is going to be more susceptible.  
      I am not concerned about her on a day-to-day basis, and she knows how to take care of herself. But this is something that I nor anyone else have control over. She was up in New Rochelle the other day—one of the places that has a massive containment issue—covering that story, though not very close to the area itself. There is very little either of us can do about that.

TB: What would you say is something that you're grateful for in this 'professional purgatory'?  

SM: One of the things I am grateful for is that I feel like I'm the type of person who reaches out to people and friends a lot. I often get frustrated because I don't get responses or the responses are few and far between. In the last few days, many close friends have been keeping tabs on each other. "Hey, how are things going? We hear there is no toilet paper there." You know, that’s been one thing, and people are being a little more proactive about reaching out and making sure that people close to them are doing well.
      People sometimes forget—because performing artists are generally in competition—how big this community is and how close-knit it is actually. We're all in the same community. Right now, we are realizing we are all in the same boat. We've all lost work. It doesn't matter whether we've lost a little bit of money or a lot of money. None of us are performing for people. Even places that I've worked in the past—that had been claiming for a week that they were not going to shut down—are now shutting down.  
       Now, hundreds and thousands of people are all understanding what it is like not to have work and not know what the next thing will be. In that way, it will bring our communities together more. It is already starting. I've seen many people trying to create online communities to write an original play and compile it for YouTube, or people writing songs about what they're going through now. That is bringing the community together and also amping up creativity in a different way.  
      That is what people are trying to do to keep each other entertained. The Met just announced today that it would be providing streaming for a bunch of different operas. Some theaters were saying that they were going to stay open to do performances with no audiences and tape them. I don't know that they can get around the union rules to do that, but it's something.

TB: If you could pick one thing specific to performers to fix about this situation, what would it be?  

SM: To expand the relief and help for artists regardless of union affiliation, and that there was some sort of plan in place where you had the ability to claim something from the government to get some kind of relief, besides unemployment. Something on top of unemployment to keep an even keel. Especially for anybody who is an independent contractor. Because all of the tribute shows I do are independent contractor work, I can't do anything with [unemployment]. If that was all the work I had for a year, I can't claim [it]. So, the artists working under those same circumstances now are much more susceptible to [financial] problems. We need something to mitigate and help those who have lost work, but specifically people who have no way of getting unemployment benefits.

TB: As we are all living in front of our screens with Netflix and Amazon Prime, what is your favorite binge?

SM: I haven't been watching anything yet. I had a bunch of records delivered when I thought I had tons of money coming in. I plan to listen to all of my new records. Then, I'm trying to catch up on some of the Oscar winners that I haven't seen, which are very few. I watched The Lighthouse the other night. It was fantastic.

TB: Any final thoughts that you would like to add?  

SM: The interesting thing is that there are so many people in the same boat. I don't think anybody's trying to scream louder than anyone else about what they have lost. That's a positive thing that everyone is thinking about and how they are in it together. We've all lost this work, and no one is worse off than anyone else. I hope that is comforting to people because they're not the only ones going through this.

TB: I agree wholeheartedly. Thank you so much for sharing your story with me today.

Addendum
March 16, 2021

At the beginning of the pandemic, many contracts were cancelled, including those for longer-term gigs such as Million Dollar Quartet in Kansas City. Cancellations such as these led to months of worry regarding income, career, and health insurance for performers. Rather than ceasing performance, Scott Moreau sought opportunities to raise money for charities such as the American Organization for Nursing Leadership—a group for whom he was supposed to have performed on March 20, 2020. However, as the pandemic continued on and on, the future looked bleak: theaters remained shuttered, and many were beginning to realize that this would be the long-term reality of life during COVID-19.

Rather than embrace the gloomy reality of a pandemic without performances, Mr. Moreau collaborated with theaters to initiate art-making in whatever ways were possible. As was common during the early stages of the pandemic, the opportunities for performance began by singing outside. For him, this was on the Kennebec River banks in Bath, Maine, which is also where Mr. Moreau was born. While any type of performance was welcome during the pandemic, this opportunity provided unique challenges. Mr. Moreau noted that the beautiful backdrop came along with a 25 mph wind which knocked over lighting trees and his music stand and whistled in the audio system.

He doesn't talk about this first experience as a negative, though. It had a learning curve, but it was an adventure in learning how best to pursue art in a new post-COVID-19 landscape. Fortunately, Mr. Moreau is very familiar with one-person shows, having performed as Johnny Cash in Walkin' the Line, and, in fact, he went on to expand this offering to include My Life as the Man in Black: Scott Moreau sings Johnny Cash. This was a unique experience because in previous shows, including Walkin' the Line, he performed as Cash; but, in My Life, he relates his story interacting with Cash's music to the audience and the reality of being a performer in the pandemic. In talking about this, he said, "Whether or not it was something that they enjoyed, it was important for them to experience, firsthand, what it was that we were all dealing with. I think it hit home."

Johnny Cash solo performances took place at the Ogunquit Playhouse, Chocolate Church Arts Center, and there was a night of Johnny Cash and Carl Perkins music at The Cape Playhouse in Dennis, Massachusetts. After these performances, Mr. Moreau was married on September 28. The wedding was another event that COVID-19 affected. As Mr. Moreau notes, not only did they have to shorten their guest list, but the wedding took place outdoors with masks, social distancing, and testing before and after to ensure that no one got sick.

The Fireside Theater in Wisconsin was next to have Mr. Moreau perform, but this was an indoor theater and significant travel for Moreau. He was not worried about travel as he was happy to drive to Wisconsin, noting that "You couldn't pay him to get on a plane, right now." Additionally, the company ensured Mr. Moreau's and the theater patrons' safety with social distancing and a new ventilation system. In fact, he noted that, in walking into the theater, he wouldn't see anyone else until he was on the hydraulic lift that took him up to the theater, where he stayed performing and revolving for their theater in the round. These performances took place on October 10 and 11, 2020.

Following these performances, Mr. Moreau had a period of downtime. He recalls to me that Christmas was a strange but special time. "I spent 13 years away from home on Christmas doing a Christmas show someplace. But this time, my wife and I had our first Christmas together. We woke up in our apartment on Christmas morning with all the decorations that we had put up. We started our new tradition of waking up together on Christmas. Whether we do that next year, who knows? But I took solace in that I was here with her."

However, the result of downtime for performers is a lack of income. While these opportunities provided wonderful experiences, this period of unemployment led Mr. Moreau to a desperate state of frenzy, where he sent out nearly a hundred applications for work. He took a job at Guitar Center in Times Square only to be informed that he would be working to close the store in three weeks. While working there, he felt more at risk for COVID-19 than at any performing gigs since customers did not feel compelled to dawn masks or socially distance.

Fortunately, his work there lasted a few weeks. He was able to move forward with two other performances, one returning to Wisconsin and the Fireside Theater and the other in Peoria, Arizona. This kept him performing from mid-January to the end of February. It also allowed him to travel over Route 66. This was especially important to him as he wanted to experience the legacy of this historic highway and support the businesses that were in a difficult financial position due to the pandemic. He notes that this trip was "isolated, in the sense that I would go to a restaurant, get takeout and sit in my car eating. Then, I would drive another eight hours to get somewhere and slide my credit card through a plexiglass protective screen. It was a lot of fun, but also strange and isolating."

I asked Mr. Moreau what he wished he knew a year ago that he knows now, and he remarked that the optimistic view that "it could be over in a couple of months" made the situation more difficult. He wished he knew that the reality of this situation is that it is going to take years to come back to a semblance of our pre-COVID normal. It was also a reminder that thinking outside the norms of theater can be useful in these odd times, as he now has two one-person shows that he can offer to the public. In my view, these shows have made Moreau unique as he is one of the few performers to be able to continue performing throughout the pandemic.

Mr. Moreau also talked about how the pandemic has developed his understanding of the importance of the arts, "In the past, I thought the arts were relatively under-appreciated. But with the pandemic and where we are right now, I fully understand not only how undervalued the arts are in education but how vehemently people think that what we do is not at all important." He goes on to talk about how many in the arts were told to seek other jobs that were, in his opinion, more dangerous than the performing jobs that they would have been working had nothing changed in early 2020. At the end of our conversation, Moreau shared that we should be warned: theater is essential to the human experience, and the unemployment of these workers will have a lasting effect on culture in general.

As he looks into the future, he has a few tentatively scheduled performances; but, it is clear that he is always looking for opportunities to provide for the human experience through the performing arts. Whether it is streaming, performing outdoors, or in a theater for live audiences, Mr. Moreau wants to work in the arts. His passion for working for the good of the arts, the artists, and humanity shines through in the work he has undertaken over the last year. I find it fitting that Moreau's work continues to embody these words by Johnny Cash: "We're all in this together if we're in it at all."

“I was meant for the stage” by The Decembrists
Scott Moreau, voice and guitar

Walkin’ the Line-The Johnny Cash Tribute
Arizona Broadway Theatre, January 31, 2021
Scott Moreau, voice and guitar

About Scott Moreau

Scott Moreau is from Litchfield, ME and holds a BFA in Music Theatre from Illinois Wesleyan University. After a lifelong dream of being a professional baseball player, Scott turned to the stage after seeing a life-changing performance of Les Misérables in London his freshman year of high school. Through his years in high school and college, he found a love for not only musical theatre but choral singing, directing, sound design and stage combat.

Since graduating from IWU he has been traveling the country, performing everywhere from his home state of Maine to Osaka, Japan. Favorite roles include: Willy Conklin in Ragtime (Seaside Music Theatre), Dan in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (Maine State Music Theatre), Man 2 in Ring of Fire (Broadway Palm West Dinner Theatre), Man 1 in I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change (Dutch Apple Dinner Theatre), Johnny Guitar in Johnny Guitar The Musical (Cortland Repertory Theatre and The Theatre Barn), Bill Sykes in Oliver! (Arundel Barn Playhouse) Sky Masterson in Guys and Dolls (Broadway Palm Dinner Theatre), Johnny "Leadville" Brown in The Unsinkable Molly Brown (Dutch Apple Dinner Theatre), El Gallo in The Fantasticks (ArtisTree Music Theatre Festival, for which he won Best Actor in the Regional BroadwayWorld Awards) and Johnny Cash on the 1st National Tour of the Tony Award winning musical, Million Dollar Quartet.  He has since reprised his role in MDQ in the Regional Premiere at the Ogunquit Playhouse (2015 and subsequent return in 2016), Tony Award winning Paper Mill Playhouse, Riverside Theatre, Fulton Theatre, Maine State Music Theatre, Springer Opera House, New Theatre and Harrah’s Casino Las Vegas.  

His experience not limited to performing, Scott made his professional directorial debut with Ring of Fire at the Round Barn Theatre in 2011.  He has since directed MDQ at Farmers Alley Theatre in Kalamazoo, MI and assistant directed at the Springer Opera House, both while doing double duty as Johnny Cash. He made his television debut on the series finale of HBO’s Emmy Award winning Boardwalk Empire as Young Jim Neary. In 2013 he released a Johnny Cash tribute, Home Of The Blues:  A Tribute to Johnny Cash at Sun Studio now available for digital download (iTunes, Amazon Music and Spotify) and on CD (https://tinyurl.com/8xfe4ne9). His original tribute shows to Johnny Cash (Walkin' The Line, Darlin' Companion and Late and Alone: An Intimate Portrait of Johnny Cash) have played to sold out houses from Les Imperial Belle in Quebec City to Celine Dion's Le Mirage in Montreal to the M Casino in Las Vegas and everywhere in between.  www.scottmoreau.com