The­atre In­dus­try Uni­fies De­spite COVID-19

MISHAWAKA--One of the in­dus­tries most im­pacted by the pan­demic has been the the­atre in­dus­try. In a world where rev­enue is de­pen­dent upon draw­ing size­able crowds, adapt­ing to a so­cially dis­tanced so­ci­ety has proven dif­fi­cult. But here at Bethel, the show must go on.

De­bra Swer­man, ad­junct pro­fes­sor of the­atre and di­rec­tor of act­ing, said Bethel’s the­atre de­part­ment is work­ing hard to fol­low CDC guide­lines and cre­ate a safe en­vi­ron­ment for its stu­dents. This means the up­com­ing per­for­mance of Shake­speare’s clas­sic “Twelfth Night” will pre­miere com­pletely on­line with no phys­i­cal au­di­ence.

Swer­man said the en­tire the­atre in­dus­try is go­ing through a re­vi­su­al­iza­tion process as it seeks to re­turn to some form of nor­malcy.

“All over the coun­try we’re hav­ing to re­think how we do the­atre right now,” Swer­man said. “A lot of the­atres are shut down, Broad­way’s shut down... they’re try­ing, slowly but surely try­ing to find ways to keep the­atre go­ing.”

Swer­man shared that she and oth­ers at Bethel are work­ing hard to en­sure that all the tur­bu­lence and un­cer­tainty af­fect stu­dents as lit­tle as pos­si­ble.

“Re­gard­less of what the busi­ness is do­ing, we still have to ed­u­cate our stu­dents,” Swer­man said. “It can’t be about sales, it can’t be about our egos, it has to be about the ed­u­ca­tion of the stu­dents.”

De­spite the cur­rent dif­fi­cul­ties, Swer­man is hope­ful that, as things slowly re­turn to nor­mal in the com­ing months, peo­ple will be ex­cited to re­turn to the the­atres.

“I think it might take a lit­tle bit of a tran­si­tion, but I think peo­ple will bounce right back,” Swer­man said. “Peo­ple are re­silient, they like their the­atre, they like their en­ter­tain­ment, and noth­ing’s go­ing to stop them from com­ing back to that.” 

Swer­man is en­cour­aged by the uni­fy­ing ef­fect the pan­demic has had on the the­atre in­dus­try.

“You can never keep an artist down, and... I saw this merg­ing of tal­ent and artists from all over the world,” Swer­man said. “We’re all in the same boat, and that’s what artists do: they come to­gether and they help each other and they cre­ate and they bounce off each other and they get ideas... this is an op­por­tu­nity for a whole new world of cre­ation and bond­ing as artists.”

Swer­man hopes that the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion will not dis­cour­age any­one from con­tin­u­ing to pur­sue ca­reers in the­atre.

“Don’t give up your dream just be­cause of a lit­tle speed bump,” Swer­man said. “In the world of time, that’s all it is. It’s just a speed bump.”

Alex Price, a 2018 Bethel grad­u­ate, is cur­rently work­ing as the op­er­a­tions man­ager at the Round Barn The­atre in Nap­pa­nee. 

“I over­see all the ins and outs of the the­atre or­ga­ni­za­tion here on prop­erty,” Price said. “Whether that’s over­see­ing all of our artists, all of our ac­tors and tech­ni­cians, I do a lot of the fi­nan­cial work, a lot of the ad­ver­tis­ing, pretty much every sin­gle thing that goes into run­ning a the­atre com­pany is what I do.”

The Round Barn can seat up to 400 pa­trons but is cur­rently lim­ited to sell­ing 190 seats per per­for­mance in or­der to main­tain so­cial dis­tanc­ing. All the ac­tors and staff are also re­quired to do a daily health check-in, and some­one checks their tem­per­a­tures be­fore they en­ter the build­ing. Every­one is re­quired to wear masks dur­ing re­hearsals, but ac­tors are al­lowed to choose whether or not they want to wear masks dur­ing per­for­mances.

“We’ve been very strict with every­thing, and so far... we haven’t had any is­sues,” Price said. “We’ve been re­ally blessed and lucky that we’ve had smooth sail­ing so far.” 

The Round Barn has been work­ing closely with health of­fi­cials to en­sure all guide­lines are fol­lowed, and it will con­tinue to do so in the days ahead. As the staff pre­pares for next year, they’re look­ing for ways to en­cour­age pa­trons to re­turn to the the­atre.

“It’s just so dif­fi­cult to look for­ward to the fu­ture,” Price said. “Next year, we’ve pro­grammed some big shows be­cause we’re re­ally try­ing to make up our rev­enue losses from this year.”

Price said that the the­atre in­dus­try as a whole has taken a big hit be­cause of COVID-19; he was sup­posed to visit Broad­way this year to see a pro­duc­tion of “The Mu­sic Man,” but his tick­ets have been pushed back all the way to March 2022.

“[Broad­way] is com­pletely shut down,” Price said. “There are peo­ple who are just sit­ting and can’t work.”

As the the­atre in­dus­try and the world at large con­tin­ues to grap­ple with the pan­demic, Price said that he ex­pects to see the­atres slowly fig­ur­ing out ways to re­open in a safe man­ner, even if it will be on a re­duced level.

“I think it’s go­ing to be this re­vi­tal­iza­tion of the­atre,” Price said. “Of go­ing back to the ba­sics of these smaller shows and smaller sets where not every­thing is so grand, be­cause we don’t have the bud­get to do that any­more. I think it’s go­ing to push every­body back to use their imag­i­na­tions and go back to the fun­da­men­tals of the­atre, which I think can be a re­ally beau­ti­ful thing.”

Price ad­mits it can be dis­cour­ag­ing to look for­ward and re­al­ize things may never look the same again.

“I don’t think it will ever be the same,” Price said. “The­atre is for­ever changed as we knew it. As de­press­ing as that is, I think it’s very true.”

The Round Barn is cur­rently work­ing on their next pro­duc­tion, “A Mu­si­cal Christ­mas Carol,” which will run from Nov. 5 through Jan. 2. For more in­for­ma­tion about this show, fu­ture shows or the com­pany in gen­eral, visit round­barnthe­atre.com.