A Plague Upon Our Houses

Blackfriars Cancels Season,
Other Pandemic Updates

The news yesterday that the American Shakespeare Center is closing its Blackfriars Playhouse in Staunton, Virginia, until at least June illustrates the many facets the coronavirus pandemic has had on economies in general and the theater community in particular. It’s more than a matter of social distancing.

Staunton has not been directly impacted by COVID-19, but the small Appalachian Valley town does rely heavily on regional tourism largely driven by the Blackfriars Playhouse, the world’s only re-creation of William Shakespeare’s indoor theater. The American Shakespeare Center’s box office receipts accounts for almost 80 percent of its annual operating budget, and the company’s primary income in the spring comes from its education programs. High school student matinees and colleges participating in the “SHXcademy,” attending a repertory of shows while studying with teaching artists, make up the bulk of ticket sales. Meanwhile, the company’s touring troupe is visiting communities and colleges around the country.

With schools and colleges closings, the theater lost more than a dozen fully subscribed matinees, and the tour company lost the last two weeks of its bookings. “All told, we’ve watched that all-important weekly box office revenue drop from $60,000 to $49,000 to $22,000, and falling,” Artistic Director Ethan McSweeny wrote in a letter to patrons. With an eye out not only for the institution but also for the Blackfriars’ role as the sparkplug for Staunton’s economy, the company’s leadership decided to shutter completely, suspending the current Actors’ Renaissance Season of four shows and canceling the entire spring season in which the touring company was to add a world premiere, Emma Whipday’s The Defamation of Cicely Lee, to its three-play repertory. All actors have been released from their contracts, and the staff furloughed.

“We’ve looked at the problem from every angle, and this is the only path to save our organization and position us to return and help rebuild and rejuvenate our local economy with the Marquee Summer season that we hope will begin performances in June,” McSweeny wrote. His using the word hope is a nell being rung throughout the industry, and in his letter the artistic director says the company needs to raise $350,000 to survive into June. “This figure will allow us to employ a part-time, skeletal staff for essential operations, make payments on the mortgage for the Blackfriars Playhouse, continue to cover health insurance for all furloughed staff and artists, and keep our actors safely housed until we begin again.”

Similar pleas are being issued by artistic directors around the country, including the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, D.C., which has established the Phoenix Fund. “Inspired by the mythical bird that is born from the ashes of adversity, this campaign will ensure the future of STC,” Artistic Director Simon Godwin wrote in his letter to patrons. In Seattle, Washington, Green Stage Shakespeare in the Park sent a “Beware the Ides of March” email informing its patrons that it plans to carry out its summer season as planned and included its typical “Donate Here” button. It supplemented this appeal with direct links to the donation pages of “sister theater companies in our community,” including Seattle Shakespeare Company and Seattle Public Theater. “Many of our beloved institutions are in financial crisis because they have had to cancel their performances and programs due to the outbreak of COVID-19,” the Green Stage email said. “Let's rally around each other and lift each other up in these strange, uncertain times.”

Meanwhile, more theater companies are joining the ranks of the closed.

• On Saturday, one day after reporting that their performances were proceeding as scheduled, the Alabama Shakespeare Festival—“in light of minute-by-minute changes related to the novel coronavirus COVID-19,” including state of emergency announcements on national, state, and city levels—cancelled the remaining runs of Kenneth Jones’ Alabama Story and Ruby: The Story of Ruby Bridges by Christina M. Ham and Gary Rue. Also cancelled were the full runs of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the end of this month and The Comedy of Errors scheduled April 16–26. The company also canceled this week’s Spring Break Camp and indefinitely postponed performances of David Lee Nelson’s Stages scheduled for next week.
  
  
• The Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, is ceasing all non-essential business on site, including canceling all public events and performances, with the intention of resuming May 1. This delays the opening of three shows: C.S. Lewis’s Prince Caspian, the musical Gypsy, and Brandon Thomas’s Charley’s Aunt.
  
  
• The Philadelphia Shakespeare Theatre, which suspended theatrical productions in 2016, cancelled its March 25 Shakespeare in the World Lecture at the Free Library of Philadelphia. “We know this period of social distancing and self-quarantine will be difficult for many people,” a company email said. “We plan to provide some respite through our social media channels, and we have our team working on a way to provide a virtual lecture experience.” Similarly, the Independent Shakespeare Company in Los Angeles, which last week postponed its upcoming production of Macbeth, announced a new series of podcasts to bridge the company to its summer festival season.
  
  
• This morning, Chesapeake Shakespeare Company in Baltimore, Maryland, announced that it was suspending performances of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) scheduled to run though March 29, and is moving its staff to “remote operations” for a week to thoroughly clean the theater. Box office operations will resume March 24.

Yesterday, Major League Baseball announced it was pushing the 2020 season Opening Day further back from the original two-week postponement to mid-May, following the Center for Disease Control’s guidance to suspend gatherings of more than 50 people for at least another eight weeks. For us baseball fans, that news was a disappointment and inconvenience.

For many theaters, such a postponement threatens their very survival.

March 17, 2020

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