Theatres 'ready to emerge' from coronavirus nightmare – but demand more guidance
Theatres today said they were ready to emerge from their coronavirus nightmare – but demanded more guidance on the roadmap.
Audiences may be back as early as May, but without a firm plan of action theatres say they cannot book shows with confidence. One theatre boss in the West Midlands today called for vaccine passports to be a way forward.
Ministers say theatres may be allowed to reopen as early as May 17 with a limited capacity, and a possible further relaxation in June – but with no guarantees.
The suggestion has been welcomed by theatres that had feared staying closed until the autumn.
Today Wolverhampton’s Grand Theatre said it would aim to announce an opening date, saying it was “encouraged”.
Richard Kay, the manager of Cannock’s Prince of Wales Theatre, said there was still “a little bit of trepidation” and suggested vaccine passports could be the way forward.
He said: “I was really surprised with the announcement. I didn’t expect the level of detail in respect of the dates. Potentially in June we could be back with full audiences. There’s a few hurdles between now and then but to hear something to work towards is a better position than we were in before.
“I thought it might be a possibility for full audiences, but in the autumn, and it’s still going to be difficult to programme.
“It has been a really really tough year on our industry without a doubt, it’s been tough world-wide.
“I have pretty much spent the whole year rescheduling shows. Our staff have been on furlough for the majority of the year.
“We had the announcement we were partially going to be able to reopen in November so we spent weeks and weeks with hand sanitiser and signage for socially distanced audiences.
“We opened on November 2 to close on November 5. We had three shows in the bag for the end of November. Our capacity reduced down to 120 and we reduced to cast to two bubbles of six.
“We have about 20 staff, a lot who are part time, and a team of volunteers as well.
“We have brought some staff back as we were successful with our application to Culture Recovery Fund back in October.
“We put in our second bid which covers April to June but we’re yet to receive a result of that.
“That has helped the organisation enormously financially. It has allowed us to bring back a small group of staff for routine maintenance as we were due various inspections.
“For the organisation it’s been tough but being successful with the CRF grant certainly means we will be here ready to open up as and when we can.
“We would’ve had to look at our staff numbers without furlough.”
Mr Kay said some professional actors have had to find different jobs.
“We want packed auditoriums but we understand it can’t be tomorrow,” he added.
“I think it’s been really tough for groups, we’re very much community theatre, we work with local amateur groups. They are absolutely desperate to get back to what they enjoy doing. I appreciate it’s a hobby but to some of the individuals it’s their main hobby outside work.
“In terms of mental wellbeing I feel for them, it’s tough.
“I know a lot try to do rehearsals on Zoom but it’s not the same as being on a stage.
“Most of the professional shows we’ve been working with seem to have got through this, they are rebooking their shows.
“Some of the workers have had to go and work for Amazon and Sainsbury’s, it’s certainly not what they want to do and not what they’ve spent 10s of thousands of pounds going through drama school for.
“One of the things that has given us the most comfort is contacting customers and inviting them to hang on to their tickets and in most instances they are hanging on to their tickets and they’ve not been battering down our doors for refunds.
“I’ve had lots of lovely emails and calls saying they will hang on to them until March next year.
“Whenever there have been chinks of light we’ve hung onto them and certainly the vaccine is another chink of light.
“One thing we’ve been developing since we got the CRF grant is different ways of communicating with some of our customers.
“We’ve just finished filming a series of theatre workshops which will be on our Facebook from March 6. It’s aimed at youngsters, it’s about prop making. We’ve branded it Prince of Wales at Home.
“It’s absolutely critical for people to know we’re still here in some shape or form and we will be here when we come out of it and if there’s anything we can do to engage with our customers we will work as hard as we can.”
Meanwhile Adrian Jackson, CEO and artistic director at Wolverhampton Grand Theatre, also welcomed the announcement.
He said: “The Government announcement this week regarding the lifting of restrictions has given us much encouragement.
“We will continue to work with our partners and will look to announce a reopening date later this year.”
And bosses at Theatre On The Steps in Bridgnorth are considering what shows it will initially be able to put on.
Artistic director Iain Reddihough said: “It’s very hard to plan what we are doing because the government has not made it clear yet what the conditions might be.
“It might be that we can have low key shows for a small audience from the end of May or early June. There might be a play which runs over a longer period if we have to limit capacity, or we could do stand-up.
“At least a month before, the government needs to say you can do this and that, so we can prepare for that.”
