Shubert to stand in for North Shore stage

Ever since a July 14 fire destroyed North Shore Music Theatre's auditorium and forced artistic director Jon Kimbell to cancel the second half of the Beverly theater's summer season, Kimbell has vowed, ''The show must go on."

Kimbell appeared visibly pleased yesterday when he announced that North Shore's upcoming productions of ''Abyssinia" and ''Camelot" will go on this summer as scheduled, but at the Wang Center for the Performing Arts' Shubert Theatre.

Wang president Josiah Spaulding Jr. and board chairman William Poduska have offered the Shubert, rent-free, to North Shore for its upcoming productions of the two shows, Spaulding and Kimbell said during a joint interview at the Wang yesterday.

The Wang will provide services such as ticketing and concessions to the Beverly company at cost, Spaulding said. Any profits will go to North Shore Music Theatre. ''Abyssinia" will run Aug. 23 through Sept. 11, and ''Camelot" will open Sept. 20.

''We've been talking for years with North Shore Music Theatre about doing some sort of collaborating, and it's unfortunate that it took a fire to get us to finally do it," said Spaulding, who says he and Kimbell have been friends for 20 years. ''This was a no-brainer for us."

North Shore has already sold an estimated 26,000 tickets to ''Abyssinia" and 27,000 to ''Camelot," according to Kimbell. The challenge facing the marketing staffs of both organizations will be to contact those ticket holders and convince them and the rest of North Shore's loyal audience to venture into Boston to see the shows. North Shore's artistic, production, and technical staffs will also have to figure out how to transfer two large-scale musicals designed for North Shore's 1,700-seat theater-in-the-round to the 1,500-seat Shubert, a standard proscenium theater.

The Wang, meanwhile, will have to sell a suburban theater production to its urban audience.

''There are some big pluses for both organizations, and some real risks," said Kimbell. ''But no risk, for us, was as great as the risk of going dark for the rest of the summer."

North Shore expects that repairs from the fire will be finished in time for the October opening of ''The Full Monty," said Kimbell. The company has received numerous offers of help from theaters and theater-lovers across the country, he noted.

''We have had some extraordinary offers of generosity," said Kimbell. Gesturing toward Spaulding, he added, ''This one is a godsend."