Pandemic knocks out large sections of Hawaii's economy

In normal times, Roland Chang and his three sons start their day at dawn, picking up tourists in Waikiki and driving them to the ocean for a boat ride to see dolphins and turtles swimming in clear blue waters. Four nights a week, the family’s band performs Hawaiian music and popular songs at a hotel.

Their friends call them workaholics. To them, it’s a routine. Or was until the coronavirus pandemic landed in Hawaii.

This May 5, 2020, photo shows Justin Chang playing a gourd during a livestream performance of his family's band, Kanilau, from the living room of his father Roland Chang's home in Honolulu. The coronavirus pandemic has taken out large sections of Hawaii's tourism-based economy, including the Chang family's turtle and dolphin snorkel tour business and their regular music gig in Waikiki. (AP PhotoAudrey McAvoy)

Like many businesses in tourism-dependent Hawaii, the Changs’ company has had no income for two months. And they don’t know if it will survive to see a post-COVID-19 world. But they agree with the restrictions imposed in the name of public health. And the family, who is Native Hawaiian, believes there will be rebirth afterward. Roland Chang’s sister NJ compared the wreckage to the way the fire goddess lays waste when a volcano erupts and lava flows across the land.

“Madam Pele has always cleaned out. I think that’s what we’re going through,” said NJ Chang, a school teacher and band vocalist and guitar player. “This is a cleaning out process, I believe, for us to all heal.”

Much healing will be required.

This May 5, 2020, photo shows Lance Chang playing a ukulele during a livestream performance of his family's band, Kanilau, from the living room of his father Roland Chang's home in Honolulu. The coronavirus pandemic has taken out large sections of Hawaii's tourism-based economy, including the Chang family's turtle and dolphin snorkel tour business and their regular music gig in Waikiki. (AP PhotoAudrey McAvoy)

A University of Hawaii survey of 623 businesses conducted with the Chamber of Commerce Hawaii showed 34% had no revenue last month. In Maui County — which is even more heavily reliant on tourism than the rest of the state — that number was 61%.

Among arts, entertainment and recreation companies — which include tours like the Changs’ — employment has declined 82% compared to January. Revenues in 2020 are forecast to sink 65% from last year.

The numbers are similarly ugly for hotels and almost as bad for restaurants and retailers. Statewide, the unemployment rate is estimated to be between 25% and 35%. Food distribution events run by the Salvation Army and other nonprofits draw lines of cars that stretch for miles.

This May 5, 2020, photo shows NJ Chang singing during a livestream performance of her family's band, Kanilau, from the living room of her brother Roland Chang's home in Honolulu. The coronavirus pandemic has taken out large sections of Hawaii's tourism-based economy, including the Chang family's turtle and dolphin snorkel tour business and their regular music gig in Waikiki. (AP PhotoAudrey McAvoy)

The Changs are living on savings. Their company, EO Waianae Tours, which has four full-time employees, applied for a Paycheck Protection Program loan for small businesses to help them get through the crisis. They're not applying for unemployment benefits.

They have some investment funds they were thinking about using to expand their business but they may now hold off because the future is so uncertain. Their tour business may even have to close.

“I think there are a lot more questions than answers,” Roland Chang said. “I’ve got to guarantee that everyone on my boat won’t get the virus. How do I protect them?”

This May 5, 2020 photo shows Roland Chang playing keyboard during a livestream performance of his family's band, Kanilau, from the living room of his home in Honolulu. The coronavirus pandemic has taken out large sections of Hawaii's tourism-based economy, including the Chang family's turtle and dolphin snorkel tour business and their regular music gig in Waikiki. (AP PhotoAudrey McAvoy)

Among the unknowns: Do they reduce the number of people on their boat (it can hold up to 26 passengers and four crew) so everyone can practice social distancing? Will they have to raise their tour rates to break even as a result? Will they need disposable snorkel gear for clients instead of lending them gear as in the past? Will travelers even come?

“On the totem pole of life right now, people are just trying to put food on the table. Until that gets rectified, it’s going to be hard to say how many people are going to actively, consistently keep the tour business open,” he said.

To slow the spread of the virus, Hawaii Gov. David Ige issued a stay-at-home order in late March and mandated that all travelers adhere to a strict 14-day quarantine when they arrive in the islands. The number of tourists has slowed to a trickle of about 200 per day, down from 30,000 before the pandemic.

This May 5, 2020, photo shows Lance Chang, left, singing and playing ukulele with his aunt NJ Chang, right, singing and playing guitar during a livestream performance of their family's band, Kanilau, from the living room of Lance's father home in Honolulu. The coronavirus pandemic has taken out large sections of Hawaii's tourism-based economy, including the Chang family's turtle and dolphin snorkel tour business and their regular music gig in Waikiki. (AP PhotoAudrey McAvoy)

Roland Chang said he supports these moves, given they are so important to protect the elderly who are more vulnerable to the disease.

“They’re at the higher risk level. Without them, we don’t have a future. So let’s keep them going. Tourism will heal itself,” he said.

Just like the plants that sprout from lava fields years after molten rock covers the land, he said.

This undated photo provided by EO Waianae Tours shows Justin Chang teaching hula to passengers on board a tour boat in Waianae, Hawaii. The coronavirus pandemic has taken out large sections of Hawaii's tourism-based economy, including the EO Waianae Tours dolphin and turtle snorkel tour business run by the Chang family and the family's regular music gig in Waikiki. (Landon ChangEO Waianae Tours via AP)

For most people, the new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia, and death.

For now, the family's band, Kanilau, streams an hour-long show on Facebook from Roland’s living room once a week. The hotel they normally would be performing at — Embassy Suites in Waikiki, has been closed since late March but it posts the session on its Facebook page. Repeat guests who have listened to them for years leave comments like “Aloha from Minnesota!” and “Canada loves you guys.”

They don’t get paid for their livestream. But the songs keep them going emotionally. Even if the tour business doesn’t survive, they vow the band will.

This undated photo provided by EO Waianae Tours shows Bryce Hunter talking to passengers on board a tour boat in Waianae, Hawaii. The coronavirus pandemic has taken out large sections of Hawaii's tourism-based economy, including the EO Waianae Tours dolphin and turtle snorkel tour business run by the Chang family and the family's regular music gig in Waikiki. (Ashlee JankanishEO Waianae Tours via AP)

“It’s in our DNA,” NJ Chang said.

NEW YORK (AP) — Christine Baranski was in the playground outside St. Matthew’s Church in Bedford, New York, about three years ago when she came across Matthew Guard, artistic director of the Grammy-nominated Skylark Vocal Ensemble.

“I love choral music,” she told him.

An Emmy- and Tony-Award winning actor, Baranski went on to attend some of his concerts.

“I was a fangirl basically,” she recalled. “And I think we just said, `Wouldn’t it be fun to do something together?’”

Baranski agreed to narrate a music-and-spoken word version of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” last December at The Morgan Library & Museum in New York, which owns the original manuscript of the 1843 classic. A recording was made last June at the Church of the Redeemer in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, and released Dec. 4 on the LSO Live label.

She will perform it again with the group on Thursday night at the Morgan, which is displaying the manuscript through Jan. 11, and again the following night at The Breakers in Newport, Rhode Island, where she will again portray the acerbic Agnes van Rhijn when Season 4 of HBO’s “The Gilded Age” starts filming season four on Feb. 23.

“I have this thing about keeping language alive, keeping beautiful, well-written language,” she said. “Dickens, Stoppard, Shakespeare. We’re getting awfully lazy in our use of the English language.”

She compliments Julian Fellowes, creator of “The Gilded Age” and “Downton Abbey,” for distinguished prose.

“I think he’d play Agnes if he could,” she said. “He gives her the witty stuff.”

Baranski leaned on the skills that earned her an Emmy for “Cybill” and Tonys for “The Real Thing” and “Rumors.”

“You get to bring to life a lot of different characters, none the least of which is Ebenezer,” she said at the library this month. “It’s wonderful for an actor to differentiate in as subtle a way as possible these different characters. As an acting piece, it’s wonderful. And not many women have done it. It’s been done by Alistair Cooke and Patrick Stewart and Patrick Page and all these great actors — but I get to do it with a chorus.”

Guard weaves in underscoring by composer Benedict Sheehan with Baranski’s words and 10 carols that include “Silent Night” and “Deck the Halls” plus “Auld Lang Syne.”

Reciting the entire story would have created a Wagnerian-length evening.

“This manuscript itself is about 30,000 words and we needed about 5,000 to make it a concert length,” Guard said. “I tried to create space in the narrative for obvious musical exclamation points or emotional feelings, almost like arias in an opera.”

Sheehan had worked together with Guard on a 2020 recording “Once Upon a Time” that weaved together the Brothers Grimm’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves” and Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid.”

“I said why don’t you commission me to write choral underscoring for the narrative that can kind of stitch together these different choral pieces?” Sheehan said.

Baranski got narration experience in 2023 when she replaced Liev Schreiber with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra at Carnegie Hall for Beethoven’s “Egmont.”

“I could do this the rest of my career,” she thought at the time. “Just put me in a concert hall surrounded by great musicians.”

After working with dialect coach Howard Samuelsohn, Baranski practiced on Zoom to hone a 19th-century voice and avoid cliché.

“I said this is a good warm up for Aunt Agnes because it’s that kind of speech we were taught at Juilliard,” the 73-year-old Baranski said, recalling lessons from Edith Skinner decades ago.

“Sometimes it’s just a question of modulating your voice, just different rhythms and staccato or legato,” she said. “I want the voice of the Ghost of Christmas past to be disembodied… ethereal.”

She didn’t have an urge to join in on the carols.

“We take from each other,” she said. “When the chorus first heard my version of it, I think it subtly influenced the feeling of it and I take from the mood of the carol and bring it into my interpretation.”

“It’s a really exciting back-and-forth actually,” Guard said. “It’s not really totally clear who’s driving the bus at times.”

Baranski hopes the project has a future.

“We want to film this someday in the Morgan,” she said. “Make this a yearly event at the Morgan, because here’s the manuscript and people. It’s just one of those things like Handel’s `Messiah’ or `The Nutcracker.’”

She’s going to gift the CD to her grandchildren, four boys ranging from ages 2 to 12. Among her previous holiday experiences was portraying Martha May Whovier in the 2000 movie “Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas.”

“They’re curiously not interested in my even being Martha May in `The Grinch,’” Baranski explained. “Their friends sometimes say: `That’s your grandmother.’ But I just want to be their grandma — do you know what I mean — and not somebody?”

Skylark Artistic Director Matthew Guard and Christine Baranski are interviewed beside "A Christmas Carol In Prose; Being a Ghost Story of Christmas" by Charles Dickens, Dec. 1843," at The Morgan Library & Museum, in New York, Monday, Dec. 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Skylark Artistic Director Matthew Guard and Christine Baranski are interviewed beside "A Christmas Carol In Prose; Being a Ghost Story of Christmas" by Charles Dickens, Dec. 1843," at The Morgan Library & Museum, in New York, Monday, Dec. 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Skylark Artistic Director Matthew Guard and Christine Baranski are interviewed beside "A Christmas Carol In Prose; Being a Ghost Story of Christmas" by Charles Dickens, Dec. 1843," at The Morgan Library & Museum, in New York, Monday, Dec. 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)