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Behind the Curtain Missing the communal experience of live theatre? These local theatre companies are finding new ways to present their work. By David Lennam
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JEFFREY BOSDET/YAM MAGAZINE
heatregoers and theatre makers have duly lamented the pandemicforced closure of local stages. At the onset of COVID’s wrath, audiences were left in the dark, unable to attend some of the approximately 130 different shows each year in Victoria. Words such as “gutted,” “depressed” and “devastated” were used in describing how they felt when curtains closed indefinitely. Theatre companies, meanwhile, need plan strategically for the upcoming season given the unpredictability of pandemic restrictions. It’s a mug’s game to lay out what will or won’t take place — but some local companies hardly missed a beat, pivoting, like many restaurants did, to present something like “take-away theatre.” Smaller companies like Theatre SKAM and SNAFU, for instance, have found new delivery methods. SNAFU offered an adult drive-in puppet show in December and hopes to do more of the same in early 2021. SKAM continued where they left off pre-COVID. “Since July we’ve been as busy as normal, if not busier,” reveals SKAM’s production manager Logan Swain, overseeing their outdoor summer festival SKAMpede, as well as pop-up and home-delivery theatre. (Book a show and they come to you, outdoors, of course.) They were the first to bounce back with live shows in the age of protocols and protection. But Swain had to hold his breath hoping it would return. He was in the audience at the Belfry’s SPARK festival, during the final show before shutdown.
Michael Shamata, artistic director of the Belfry Theatre. Their season will be performed in front of a small socially distanced audience and simultaneously live streamed.
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YAM MAGAZINE JAN/FEB 2021