Looking Ahead: The Future of Theatre Arts After the Pandemic
From performing eight shows a week to… none in a matter of days. This was the harsh reality that many performers and staff members had to face, once Broadway announced their shut down on March 12 of 2020 due to the COVID-19 virus.
Luckily the wait is almost over. On March 3rd of this year, New York’s governor Andrew Cuomo held a press conference where he stated that on April 2nd of 2021, entertainment venues will be able to reopen at 33% capacity. But now that Broadway might be able to reopen its doors we ask ourselves, how will this reopening look like and how it might change the theatre industry in the near future?
In an interview with the artistic director Jamil Jude from Kenny Leon’s True Colors Theatre, he talked about the Covid restrictions affecting the process of making a show and also on the family unit that is built along the way. Jamil says that “the level of commodity in the room might have to be different for a while, because we can’t be so close to each other outside when we are rehearsing […] that is going to present some challenges on the way we make the work, but I think we are going to survive through it.”
This change in the show making process is more evident for college students who have had to perform to a camera without the presence of a live audience, “Usually you feel the energy of an audience.” said Hugo De Billie V, a Theatre Arts major at New Mexico State University. “But performing in front of the camera you have to switch your brain differently, you kinda have to look at the lens and imagine that it is a person.”
While talking about the process of filming Caitlin Skibyak another Theatre Arts major said “The process is really repetitive […] but it intertwines theatre with film and you get more experience overall.”
Another change that we hopefully will start to see in the industry is more higher chances of getting casted for performers that want to start in professional theatre, thanks to video tape auditions and social media, that can bring new talent to casting directors and agents from all over the country. But definitely the most important one, is the opportunity for more diverse productions to come into Broadway thanks to the racial justice movements that happened last year. In an interview with Matt DeAngelis and Christie Dweyr, (former Broadway performers) Matt said “Hopefully, the business will look more like an equitable space for all people, whether it is gender non binary or BIPOC or LGBTQIA+ […] I’m not sure that Broadway is an instrument of social change, I don’t know how much we are going to move the country along, but I know that the industry is starting to move.”
This pandemic has put theatre on hold for quite a while, but rest assured that there will come a day when full houses will be acceptable and the curtains will be raised up again to reveal the wonders of live theatre once again.
