On the first date with the man who would be her husband, they went to see “Forever Plaid” at the Waldo Theatre. Keri was selling fine wine to local restaurants and wine stores and Tyler worked at Moose Crossing. They settled in Waldoboro in 2004 when they married. It was, and still is, the life she’d dreamed of with a home in a town where things moved slowly and where people were more connected than in New Bedford, MA where she’d grown up. When talk started up about re-opening the Waldo Theatre in 2017, Keri got involved immediately. Replacing the roof was the most urgent problem the team of volunteers faced. To raise funds, they put on a concert with performers that included the Oshima Brothers, John Stirratt of Wilco, The Maine Youth Rock Orchestra, and The Alehouse String Band. They raised $35,000. More significantly, they saw how much the community wanted this theater. They incorporated as a non-profit and put together a Board of Directors, on which Keri is now the president. They developed a budget with a 3-year plan with the goal of opening in 2020. Keri got involved with developing programming while raising two daughters, being race director for the Midcoast Conservancy’s annual fun-runs, and each spring, starting and raising the vegetable seedlings at Moose Crossing alongside her husband Tyler. To illustrate the Board’s vision for the Waldo, Keri tells a story from Julie Keizer who was driving an older woman to a doctor’s appointment. As they passed the theater, the woman said, “Ohh, the Waldo…when I was growing up, my sister and I didn’t have money to go to the movies there, but we went anyway because the usher would let us come in. And for that hour we were just like everybody else. We were able to sit in the theater and watch a movie, and nobody knew that we couldn’t afford it.”
The year was 2020 and we were opening the Waldo. It was to be a season of theater, performing arts, youth education, film, and concerts. Then COVID arrived. We cancelled our debut.
We had to rethink our whole season line-up. We had just hired an executive director. And now we had no revenue stream. Just donors and foundations. And suddenly the biggest need in community was food insecurity, so who’s going to give to the arts? Who’s going to care about a little theater in Waldoboro, Maine that wants to re-open?
Our community totally showed up for us. People mailed in checks to keep us going. Painters, electricians, and landscapers volunteered to do all the things needed.
I wanted to be involved with the Waldo because I love live music. I love that experience of standing in a crowd and collectively listening to music. It feeds my soul. So, when we needed someone to book artists, I figured I could do that. I like to talk with people. But I knew nothing.
Thankfully, I had friends and friends of friends who helped me. One friend put me in touch with a booking agent down in Philadelphia who had grown up in Union. When I told him about the Waldo, he was all in. And since then, he’s been helping us, essentially for free, make connections with artists.
But some of my bookings have been pure luck. Like Hiss Golden Messenger. I knew he played Portland every year, so I called him. Then I called his agent. We decided on a show last September. But it didn’t happen. Covid flared. So I circled back, and we booked him for our first sold-out show this July.
It was a gamble. It’s expensive to book live music. Musicians have to be paid. And so do their booking agents, their marketing agent, their tour people, and their sound people. You’re praying people buy tickets. Because we have limitations at the Waldo.
We have just 300 seats. That puts a ceiling on the potential to make money, both for the artist and for us. We can’t sell $100 tickets. So that limits the acts that we can bring in. There’s the design of the hall, too. It is a very live, resonant room, so I always have to check in with our sound guy to confirm we can guarantee a clear sound. And then here’s our audience. What are people are going respond to? And lastly, does this artist meet our mission for diverse music?
If I find someone who fits those parameters, I put an offer with their management. If they accept, we go into the next round which includes the technical requirements of amps, monitors and microphones. And if we can provide that, then we get their rider for all the things they need, like water in glass bottles, a dozen red roses, clean towels, vegan gluten-free meals, security, particular lights on the stage, even transportation, because artists have been on the road, and this is their home for a night.
In the beginning, I thought the job was, “Just bring your amp and guitar and plug in and play.” But it’s not easy to get famous people on your stage to sing a song. There is a ton of work that goes into producing a concert. And layers and layers of agents and tech people.
I never realized how numbers-driven this job is, with Google spread sheets and tasks like weighing the numbers of all the expenses against the percentage of ticket prices so we can break even, all the while hoping we can make money over those numbers. But I believe in this project.
People are so busy with their lives. It’s a lot to ask someone to volunteer. And there are so many organizations beyond the Waldo — local government, too — that need volunteers. I wish more people, especially young people, would get involved. Serve on a Board of Directors! Run for Selectman!
If you want something to change, you have to start somewhere. It was true for the Waldo. Because without involvement, you lose the fabric of community.
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