Photo credit: Mark Frohna
How to gather together while staying apart is the paradox being addressed by performing arts groups across the world during the Age of Pandemic. And yet, in the familiar phrase, “The show must go on,” as actors and artistic directors continue to imagine performances in the face of COVID-19.
Several Milwaukee companies shared their thoughts as of July as they planned for a fall season under conditions that could change in an instant.
First Stage
Artistic Director Jeff Frank continued to monitor Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines while working with various performance spaces and unions. But he points out that reopening is still yet to be determined. “We are not able to predict when we will be able to safely return to in-person rehearsals and/or present to a live audience,” he explained. “In addition to safety concerns, the projected downturn in revenue due to limitations on audience size are proving to be a significant challenge—even when taking into account potential revenue from streaming in-person performances to audiences who are unable or unwilling to attend live theater.”
First Stage was evaluating all options with regard to casting, rehearsal, cleaning, shared props, front of house, back of house, understudies, blocking while physical distancing and more, Frank emphasized. The focus will be on a phased approach to reopening but, as he pointed out, “We don’t anticipate reaching 100% capacity at any point during the coming season.”
Given the pause in programming, First Stage is committed to moving forward in other ways. “While we are taking a step back—an intermission of sorts, from our standard level of production—we will be putting our focus on serving our young people and ensuring they have opportunities and access to our Theater Academy and Theater in Education programming,” Frank said. “This is also a time where we will further our internal Equity Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) work and seek to build more meaningful relationships with our broader community.”
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Florentine Opera
“Trying to produce grand opera in a pandemic, while a fascinating challenge, would not produce outcomes that live up to our values—especially artistic excellence,” said Kristine Davis-Koch, Florentine Opera’s director of audience development. The Florentine had to postpone its fall production of Rigoletto with a new focus on outdoor performances such as “Pasta & Puccini,” with Italian songs accompanying a meal in the garden behind the Lueders Opera Center in Riverwest.
“As challenging and frustrating as this has been for all of us, we are trying to look at these smaller performances as experiments,” Davis-Koch said. “Perhaps we will find a new way to connect with the audience because of these current limitations, or a more intimate way for people to perform that has a different kind of reward.”
Photo by Eric Olson - Saturn Lounge
Milwaukee Ballet
The Milwaukee Ballet established a health and safety committee in late April 2020 with the goal of establishing best-practice COVID-19 protocols for the company and its school and academy, according to Managing Director Anne Metcalfe. The committee focused on the new Baumgartner Center for Dance, a 52,000-square-foot facility that allows 120 square feet per student in its studios. The Ballet capped the number at 15 students per studio.
“We amended our original plan for a six-week program with 140 local, national and international students (with dorm housing available at UW-Milwaukee) to be a four-week program for local students only (living in the radius of a 90-minute drive from the studio),” Metcalfe explains. “Although we planned vigorously for the re-opening, we gave ourselves a late deadline for confirming the program, pending local health and safety guidelines on re-opening.”
Milwaukee Rep
The Rep has designated five operational categories that it must “navigate in order to reopen,” Executive Director Chad Bauman explains. They include: Regulatory Environment; Artistic Operations; Front of House/Building Operations; Financial Viability; Human Resource Challenges.
“We will incorporate all recommendations and guidelines from city, state and national public health officials,” he said. “This will almost certainly mean significantly reducing the capacity of our venues, increasing our cleaning and sanitization efforts after every performance, and could include the wearing of face masks,” he pointed out.
Bauman adds, “We are several months away from reopening, we will have to remain flexible in our reopening plans. That said, the safety of our patrons, staff and artists is of primary importance.” The Rep is currently scheduled to open with its first production of the season, Dad’s Season Tickets, on Oct. 30.
With the Rep being one of the largest arts organizations in Milwaukee, Bauman emphasizes that the theater company is able to rely on its donor base. But he is well aware of COVID’s impact on other groups.
“To date, we’ve been able to weather this unprecedented storm through the generosity of private philanthropy,” he said. “But I fear several of the arts and cultural organizations that make our city such a vibrant and wonderful place to live will be forced to close without additional support soon.”
Next Act Theatre
For Next Act’s Producing Artistic Director David Cecsarini, the season is still moving forward while knowing it can change at any time.
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“First, we waited, watched, listened, waited some more,” he explained. “And we’re still waiting, because any plans we make will be affected by what happens in the future, which remains a fluid situation.”
The company is keeping to its original schedule and as Cecsarini pointed out, “The November show [The Christians, a Wisconsin premiere by Tony Award-nominee Lucas Hnath] may actually lend itself well to an altered form.”
The company’s 18-foot-tall ceilings coupled with its U-shaped seating allows for enough social distancing room within its 164-seat space. The company plans on taking every precaution in terms of sanitizing surfaces and using masks and gloves, even in rehearsal.
Said Cecsarini: “My philosophy is this: Most of us have kept ourselves healthy and out of harm’s way for almost four months, and we will need to keep doing so to regain our livelihood.”
Courtesy of Skylight Music Theatre
Skylight Music Theatre
“Our focus has been on determining how to present and preserve the experience of live theatre while ensuring the safety of our patrons, performers, crews and staff. A senior leadership team representing administration, artistic and production departments has met almost daily since the COVID-19 shutdown to formulate plans,” Skylight Music Theatre Executive Director Jack R. Lemmon said. “These discussions involve every aspect of producing and presenting live music theatre, including safety protocols during rehearsals, backstage, onstage and reviewing performance dates and cast sizes. For audiences, we are developing guidelines for distanced seating, audience capacity, intermissions, touchless ticketing, how to enter and move through the building, and food and beverage service, as well as protocols for masks, temperature checks, cleaning and sanitation and other aspects of the ‘new normal.’
“Our plans have been revised numerous times as governmental orders and CDC information changed,” Lemmon continued. “We have listened to, and sought counsel from collaborative discussions with other arts groups in Milwaukee. We have also held meetings with actors and artists in our Skylight family and gotten feedback from patrons and our board of directors.”
Added Skylight’s Artistic Director Michael Unger, “In April we canceled all summer events and postponed the two remaining shows in Skylight’s 2019-2020 season, Evita and Candide. We still plan to present these two productions in the future, with almost the entire creative teams and casts intact.”
Harry Cherkinian is a veteran Milwaukee writer who covers arts for the Shepherd Express.
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