UCB Hell’s Kitchen and NYC Training Center Are Permanently Closing
(via Vulture)
Announced today via e-mail by UCB, The Upright Citizens Brigade’s venue in Hell’s Kitchen and their dedicated NYC Training Center will stay closed once the stay-at-home/lockdown orders are lifted in NYC. As an organization, it apparently became too much of a financial stress on their entire organization during this pandemic to keep all of their schools and theaters afloat while they are relying pretty much on online classes right now to pay their leases. It’s truly heartbreaking to hear of these closures as the Upright Citizens Brigade made their bones with their own theater first in NYC and now there is no brick and mortar UCB venue in the five boroughs.
The fate of the rest of UCB, which includes the LA theaters and schools at UCB Franklin and UCB Sunset have yet to be officially determined (though we wouldn’t be surprised to see UCB revert to operating solely out of UCB Franklin if they have to have to keep cutting costs to save the entirety of Upright Citizens Brigade).
A comment was added that the closures of the NYC venues doesn’t mean that UCB’s presence in NYC is over, but to what that might specifically mean in the future is unclear at this time, especially with UCB already having lots of financial strain before the COVID-19 pandemic hit the United States.
We will keep you updated more on the status of UCB’s venues as we hear and we can only hope that other comedy clubs, theaters, schools will get to stay open when all of this is over.
