Messenger: Branson musical family tackles new challenges amid self-isolation of coronavirus pandemic

Tim Haygood and his wife, Cassandre, sing during a Facebook live stream. Photo used with permission.

Tony Messenger

Tim Haygood had a question for his siblings, who make up one of the most well-known musical families of Branson.For 27 years, more than half his life, he and his family members had been on stage every night. They started at Silver Dollar City in 1993, then moved to other theaters. Every night, The Haygoods would sing, dance and perform in front of crowds of hundreds.Then the coronavirus pandemic hit and they found themselves at home, separated from each other, from their fans, from the now deserted Branson strip. Like so many other people across the country, they held a Zoom video call to stay in touch.“What do normal people do at night?” Haygood asked.

This map and these charts show the spread of the coronavirus and COVID-19 in Missouri and Illinois.

It’s a question many of us are asking in some form or fashion in this new normal, where stay-at-home orders are being extended and we find ourselves spending more time with family, calling and texting friends, filling the void with binge-watching of television series, rediscovering board games and having time to cook family meals.For the Haygoods — and all of Branson, really — it’s an entirely different sort of adjustment.In the southwest Missouri town that is one of the key tourist destinations in the state, bright lights and traffic backups on the strip are the norm. Now the entertainers are stuck at home, the workers and support staff are wondering what comes next, and everybody else has left town.Silver Dollar City amusement park was the first to close. Then the Dixie Stampede, the Presleys, the Haygoods and pretty much everybody else. With a target audience of seniors, who also are the target audience for coronavirus, Branson became a ghost town almost overnight.“This is going to be a long road,” Haygood says. “It’s like a nuclear bomb went off in Branson. We’ve never had this much time off. It’s a really, really strange feeling. When you drive down the strip, and see all the signs — ‘we will be back soon’ — it’s ominous.”When the Haygoods get together for a family Zoom meeting, it’s a crowded affair.There’s Tim, who’s the oldest at 42, plus Patrick, 40, Dominic, 37, Michael, 32, Matthew, 30, and Catherine, 28. She was 1 when the family act got its start. Two other brothers — Aaron and Shawn — don’t have stage roles on the show, which plays at the Clay Cooper Theatre.After missing their first shows in 27 years — not even a tornado stopped them a few years back — the Haygoods have turned to their music for comfort. They jam together, working on new material, and they have tried to livestream music for their fans on Facebook. Tim and his wife Cassandre, and their terrier, Ivey, have been performing regular Facebook Live events just to keep fresh and connect with fans.Of course, it’s nothing like a live show.“When you are an entertainer, and you get used to the adrenaline rush and being on stage and making people happy — and then that is gone — it is the wildest, out-of-sorts feeling,” Haygood says.He’s talked to fellow musicians in Las Vegas, New York and Nashville, and folks he knows in touring shows. All are in the same boat. They will come back, at some point, to an economy where millions of Americans are getting off unemployment and trying to rebuild. The new normal might be around for longer than anybody can imagine.On the day we talked, Haygood was busy with Small Business Administration forms, applying for some of the loans to keep businesses afloat provided in the $2 trillion CARES Act. The family has been paying support staff out of their own pockets, hoping for the day — maybe this summer — when they can hear the crowds again.“It’s been a little terrifying,” Haygood says. “But we’re trying to figure it out. The whole country is in the same boat.”

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