Chicago Tribune: Testing. Masks. Vaccination passports. Capacity restrictions. Social distancing. Union rules. CDC recommendations.
As Chicago’s theaters and venues prepare to reopen — a few this summer, en masse come the fall — those important COVID-19 considerations are sucking up most of the energy. And for good reason. Artists need to get back to work. People deserve to feel safe.
7 comments:
I feel like a lot of people do assume that the theatre industry is going to reopen right where it left off last Spring. In reality, that seems like a lost dream that will never happen. After the year that the entire world just had, it’s not realistic to think that things will ever be the same again. This article made some really good points. From the lives lost due to the pandemic to the racist violence faced by the BIPOC community, I have to say that it would be wrong to jump right back into the “real world” without honoring those we wish to be with us today. At the same time, I also understand that people may just want to have a good time in the company of others. After being in almost total isolation for over a year, it makes sense that people would crave a good laugh or two in the theater. Either way, I think it is possible and important to find a way to do both.
I think it is going to take a really long time for the theater industry to be fully up and running again. I think a dangerous territory we are walking into is the amount of people that are saying that they want theater to be back exactly how it was and they miss exactly what was there before the pandemic. Frankly, it was not amazing before the pandemic and this proved to be a good opportunity for the industry as a whole to look back and see how exploitative and racist parts of the industry were like. We are going to have to come back wanting things to be better than before not exactly how it was. We are also going to have to make a conscious effort in deciding how to make things better and acknowledge that it will take a long time for everything to heal. Frankly healing not just in the way people were treated but also financially with people not being able to make any money during this pandemic and venues losing a ton of money the moment the shut down happened. I think we need to be patient as we move forward and understand that even when this virus is gone, the effects of it will be noticeable for a few years going forward.
This article makes a very good point. One that I, now ashamedly, had not thought of before reading it. I had fallen into the masses that the article talks about who thought, or I guess wished, for the theatre world to pick up just where it left off in 2020. However, it is so obvious not what it cannot. How could I not have thought that with all of the change in the world that we could go right back to where we were. We are obviously not living in the same world as we were when we first went into lock down, nor are we the same people we were then. So therefore there is no way that the theatre that reflects this world and its people could be the same as it was over a year ago. I am not sure if I am now more eager to see the theatrical comments on the pandemic, or on the violence towards the BIPOC communities. Both sorely need addressing. But on the other side some international closure of the year behind needs to be reached. And as much as the theatre is used to ignite controversies, it may be one of the best avenues for this kind of closure.
This article does a really good job of circling a point that could have been made in a tweet. It also feels a bit disingenuous for Chris Jones, a critic who has a history of being hypercritical of plays by/about BIPOC folks, to use police violence as a backdrop to make his point. That said, yes I do agree with the that idea that theater, in all its forms, can be multipurpose. Some people look to theater for escapism, some look to theater for insights into humanity. This is true of almost all art forms and why both the Fast and the Furious and Parasite exist. We should allow theater makers to allow space for all times of theater in their season. However, that does mean not we need to include people of “varying political sensibilities.” The Republican party is struggling to excise white supremacist from its base and until they figure whether they are a party that believes in small government and civil liberties or they are a party that believes in banning abortion, same-sex marriage, and transgender athletes, without including literal traitors they do not space in our theaters.
The author makes a good point about what we’ve been expecting for the return of live performance and he’s right. We’ve been thinking about that how and not really the what. Theater is a great social commentary and with the awful things that have been coming to the limelight over the past year. He’s right that healing is in our future with respect to gun violence and hopefully there is theater to be performed about it. I’m curious if there will be theater about this pandemic in an attempt to heal from the half a million dead and many others hit by the economic repercussions. That may not need to happen now, but maybe further down the road and we start to recover and heal. I wonder if the “healing” that the author talks about will be difficult because we’re not out of the woods yet when it comes to gun violence and police brutality.
I am not a huge fan of how dramatic the Chicago Tribune was making Covid when it is something we have been living with for over a year now. They do not need to do the whole "social distancing" "masks" etc. thing like it isn't dramatic or swooning in any way so please just stop and get to the point of the article. I think that the article makes quite obvious points, but maybe that is what some people need to understand what a pandemic is. Safety should continue to be a priority even with vaccines and theaters opening up. I hope that people are educated enough to not assume that with open theaters means no virus, poof, magically gone. I do however appreciate the connections it makes with this time of healing after such social uprisings for equity and peace, there is a lot to take into consideration with black lives matter, stop asian hate, gun violence, and other important movements that have taken light this past year.
Also on a side note, wtf with all the ads on the Chicago tribune!? Could barely scroll through without my computer lagging due to all the ads and randomly opening up a new tab for an ad I didn't click on!!
I definitely feel like the points made in this article were valid ones- we've been expecting to have the theatre industry return to normal, but what is normal has rapidly evolved over the course of this last year. As a theatre maker, it is scary to know that what we have accepted as our industry will change, and it's hard to know what is to come ahead, which has it's own sets of fears and anxieties. I think that through this pandemic, the type of theatre we've been making and that I've seen made has been really interesting and related to the issues at hand. I think that as theater becomes more in person, it will continue to evolve in terms of what we are making about. Definitely excited to see how theatre can push forward some movements in the social justice world these next couple of years. It will be so exciting to see.
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