At SummerStage, the show must go on, even when unforeseen circumstances — like a spaceship — threaten to stop the music.
Workers at the famed outdoor concert series — which is hosting close to 90 free and benefit shows in Central Park and 12 local parks throughout the five boroughs this season — are always prepared to pivot when a sour note strikes.
On July 23, when temperatures hit the 90s in Central Park, the staff decided to hose the crowd down at the Everyday People show.
“We asked them before we did it and they said, ‘Bring it on!’ Then they just erupted in cheers and it became a big ole dance party,” said general manager Larry Siegel, who has been with the program for four years.
During the city’s blackout in August 2003, the folk rock duo Indigo Girls decided to still rock out in Central Park using SummerStage’s generator.
Josy Dussek, director of arts operations, who has been working at the outdoor concert series — officially titled the Capital One City Parks Foundation SummerStage — for two decades, served as her colleagues’ designated driver after the show ended.
“We stuffed the car kind of like a clown car and were driving slowly because there were no traffic lights,” she said. “I think there was only one other venue that had shows that night in New York City. We tried to end it at a decent time so that it won’t be black all the way getting people out of the park.”
Things got a little funky in July 1996 when George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic performed on the 20th anniversary of their Mothership Connection album and landed a spaceship on the stage, attracting a huge crowd.
“They decided to bring back the mothership, so for two nights, they played for four hours a night, huge crowds, people were backed up out to Fifth Avenue, trying to get into the show,” said Kahlil Goodwyn, venue manager at SummerStage’s concert location at Rumsey Playfield at Central Park, who has been working there for 30 years.
When it came time to remodel the stage a few years later, producers took inspiration from that far-out experience.
“They put a round roof on it to make it look more like that mothership landing and we’ve had a round roof on our stage ever since then,” Goodwyn explained.
Due to the pandemic, SummerStage live-streamed shows in the summer of 2020. It returned in 2021 with a shorter in-person season in four parks.
In Central Park, Goodwyn took on the additional role of COVID compliance officer and had to swab punk rocker Patti Smith, who wanted a COVID test before she performed in September 2021.
“That’s about as close as you can get to an artist,” he said, laughing. “She said that I had a gentle touch.”
