Despite the uncertainties we’re struggling with during this global COVID-19 pandemic, it’s the nature of human beings to want to gather together. This human impulse drives the arts, especially live performance. The recent historic £1.5 billion commitment by the UK government to support the arts is a testimony to the cultural necessity and healing power of the arts—which happen to drive the economic engine of the City of New York. But with Broadway dark into 2021, no COVID-19 vaccine in sight, reopening in New York State is indeterminate, particularly with stringent rules in place.
But hope and a way forward can be seen in other states. Many theaters across the country have been producing shows with nonunion actors at varying levels of guidance. Yet, for the first time, Actor’s Equity has agreed to allow limited performance of members onstage for two theater companies in the Berkshires, in August. A fully-realized outdoor production of Godspell will be staged by the Berkshire Theater Group with a cast of ten (who will isolate together in a house)and who will perform without physical contact. Barrington Stage will offer the solo show, Harry Clarke. In both cases, performers and stage managers will be tested for the coronavirus regularly, and socially distanced audience members will be required to wear masks and adhere to other rules governing safety.
Here are a few examples of other productions moving ahead in the midst of the pandemic:
• A solo The Picture of Dorian Gray plays in a former firehouse in Richmond, Va., to a very limited audience.
• In a parking lot in Denver, audience members in their own cars watch four actors from Buntport Theater perform an original coronavirus-inspired play.
• Spread across a 4,000-seat amphitheater in Arkansas, a limited number of theatergoers can view 130 actors perform the story of Jesus. Other producers of epic outdoor theater going forward are Medora Musical in North Dakota, the Shepherd of the Hills Outdoor Drama in Branson, Mo. and the Great Passion Play in Eureka Springs, Arkansas.
• At the Invisible Theater in Tucson, AZ, four actors perform Filming O’Keefe for a very limited audience.
• Footlights Theater in Falmouth Maine will resume performances with actors placed behind plexiglass.
• Indianapolis’ Fonseca Theater Company will stage the three-character Hype Man outdoors for a limited audience.
• In July, Louise Lasser and Bob Dishy will perform for Food for Thought Productions in a private club in New York City, with attendees required to have taken coronavirus tests.
• The Alhambra dinner theater continues to produce Cinderella at 50-percent capacity, with a number of precautions in place, including plexiglass between seating tiers.
• Virginia’s American Shakespeare Center is resuming its season, playing to 50-percent capacity houses, with an ASC SafeStart plan handbook governing the reopening.
• In Chicago, the Random Acts of Theater collective stages innovative street theater, mostly on weekends.
• Love Letters performs in the Des Moines Playhouse parking lot.
This list is a sampling of many other efforts to perform live nation-wide. The fact is that aside from social necessity, without financial support many theaters can’t survive for any length of time without revenue.
Theater examples in this article are based in part by research published in The New York Times.
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