Looking to the future as the theatres go dark

Events are cancelled, venues are closed but performers and managers still need to plan for both the immediate and more long-term future.

Behind every cancellation notice there are many individuals whose lives are changed, both professionally and socially.

Over the past week I have been talking to musicians and singers, directors and managers about the effect the coronavirus is having on them, and considering the longer term implications for the arts in Hastings.

I caught up with Neil Sellman, Chair of the Stables Theatre. He has only been in place for a year and in that time has overseen a broadening of the Stables outreach and involvement in the local community. Needless to say this has come to an immediate halt with the onset of the coronavirus.

“Thankfully we are in a secure position financially even with having to close the theatre with immediate effect. We rely almost entirely on volunteers and the local community have always given us strong financial support. We have wanted for some time to open up the theatre for greater community use and had just started to do so when the pandemic hit us.”

Given the importance of volunteers to the Stables, I wondered how self-isolation was affecting them. “At least 80 percent of our volunteers come into the risk category. The majority of them are fit, well and enthusiastic but realistically we all need to be very careful at this time and it would be quite wrong to allow people to work with us if they were putting themselves, and others, at risk by doing so.”

And how were plans for the future going?

“Looking at the shows booked in for this season, we had 42 listed of which seven have taken place. However, we may have to reschedule or cancel many of these if the epidemic continues. As we have no dedicated staff within the theatre for particular jobs it is difficult to retain consistency of support, which is why we have reluctantly decided to close for three months, subject to further advice.

“We hope we can reopen in September. As long as we are given the all clear to do so we could start quite quickly, as plays were already in rehearsal and could be restarted with relative ease once casts can meet up again.

“Our website gives details and we try to keep it updated on an almost daily basis as the situation changes. Members can now choose to get refunds for tickets already purchased or defer them on the assumption that the plays will be staged at a later date. This, obviously, is not the case with visiting shows, like Antony & Cleopatra, where we are in the hands of the companies themselves as to their future plans, and immediate decisions to cancel.

“Valuable as the internet is we are very aware that many of our regular patrons don’t have access to IT and we are therefore making a point of sending letters (almost unheard of these days!) to ensure everyone knows what is happening. We hope to bring them all good news of an opening date in the near future.”

I also spoke to Polo Piatti about the Opus Theatre’s situation and his own as a professional composer. Just before we spoke he had released a composite video from the Composers’ Festival 2018, which is an inspiring example of the breadth of music-making and the way he has galvanised composers from across the world to join with him here on the South Coast.

I wondered how his plans for Opus Theatre were changing in the light of the pandemic.

“We have obviously had to make a lot of changes. I am sorry we have had to postpone the concert which soprano Thomasin Trezise and guitarist Sergio Puccini were due to give in early May. This is essentially due to the travel restrictions now in place in Argentina. Put bluntly, Sergio is not allowed to travel, either abroad or within Argentina. When you add this to our own closures it is obvious that we have no idea when the concert might be able to take place.

“It is a little different for Hastings Sinfonia, but even here there is an on-going problem with rehearsals, which again are impossible for the time being. We have considered the idea of out-door events, which might be feasible in the summer, but again rehearsing beforehand is currently out of the question. There is some thought of on-line rehearsals, in the same way as on-line choirs have been, very successfully, created, but not all of our players have the equipment, or the expertise, necessary to set this up.

“In many ways the same is true for our plans for the next Composers’ Festival, where we were to have had an orchestra from Singapore. Now, with the dates unknown, all of this is unsure. Thankfully the London Mozart Players are very keen to ensure that my oratorio Libera Nos goes ahead even if as expected we have to postpone its premiere. It seems somewhat ironic that the text is a plea for rescue – the very thing the whole world wants at this moment, regardless of individual beliefs.”

There is one silver lining to the otherwise grey clouds though: “Like so many other people at the moment, I am in voluntary isolation, which means I have time to finish writing the cello concerto for which I have a specific commission and also, potentially, to get back to my opera which I keep having to abandon because of the pressure of other work.”

Let us hope that the dynamism shown by both the Stables Theatre and Opus Theatre is able to continue once this pandemic has passed, and will return to us refreshed, renewed and as viable as ever.

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White Rock Theatre races to reschedule shows: coronavirus update. Click here to read more.