T HE A RTS
This summer, Ogunquit Playhouse is going al fresco and shooting for the stars.
COURTESY OGUNQUIT PLAYHOUSE
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t’s not like it’s never been done before. Classical Greek dramas were performed in outdoor amphitheaters, and Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre was open to the skies. Until the pandemic forced Ogunquit Playhouse to cancel its 2020 summer season, the 89-year-old theater had not gone dark since World War II. “If baseball and football can be enjoyed outdoors in October, theater can too,” says executive artistic director Bradford Kenney. “Last fall’s outdoor cabaret was a great dress rehearsal for this summer. We learned how to manage patron arrivals and departures and traffic flow to concessions and restrooms safely, even how to effectively light a performance space with an ever-changing natural light source.” That said, all shows aren’t equally adaptable to outdoor performance, and “Maine is not Miami,” so On Your Feet!, the Emilio and Gloria Estefan jukebox musical, had
B Y GWEN THOMPSON
to be put on hold due to costuming considerations in a cooler climate. And “Socially Distant Dancing” doesn’t have quite the same ring to it, so Dirty Dancing also had to be postponed till 2022. After this past year like no other, Kenney says, “We asked ourselves, ‘What’s going to lift people’s spirits and make them smile?’” Tap-dancing knights, obviously! “We hadn’t done Spamalot in over ten years,
and it already takes place outdoors with the knights going on a quest. It even takes place during the Great Plague,” Kenney points out, “when there used to be traveling Plague plays performed by troupes using a great big wagon for the stage. The Pythons are working on a new, COVID-friendly, 90-minute production with no intermission, and we’re the test case for it–our director went out to L.A. to meet with Eric Idle. “Our outdoor stage is three times the size of our regular stage—seventy-five by one hundred feet—so we’re going to build a whole Medieval town onstage and roll in a caravan just like they did in the Middle Ages. I got very excited until we budgeted in the wood and I saw our scenic budget had doubled because the price of wood has almost tripled.” That’s on top of the $300,000-plus price tag for Ogunquit’s new 25,000-square-foot, fully covered, open-air Leary Pavilion fully wired for lights SUMMERGUIDE 2021 131