The pandemic is over, but Frederick’s

BY ERIK ANDERSON Special to The News-Post

For most Frederick County residents, reminders of the COVID-19 pandemic are scarce, and when they do appear, they are only that — reminders, not real ramifications. Some stores have leftover, no-longer enforced signs urging customers to stand six feet apart in checkout lines. Sightings of people wearing masks are not exactly unusual, but businesses that require customers to wear masks are rare or nonexistent. For the most part, the community has moved on.

Frederick’s local performing arts companies have mostly moved on, too. There are no more masked performances or spaced seating. But unlike the rest of the community, save for perhaps the healthcare and elderly sector, the pandemic has left many important, tangible changes on the performance world that will be felt for years into the future. Possibly forever.

Susan Thornton, who last year retired from a 40-year career in Frederick’s professional and community theater circuit, said the local performing arts are doing fairly well post-pandemic. However, she said the shutdowns caused by the pandemic three years ago were so sudden and damaging to theater companies’ bottom lines that the shock of that experience will factor into their decisionmaking for a long time.

“It’s something everybody lived through that everybody thought, ‘Oh, this could never really happen,’” she said. “That is probably a fear theater is going to be living in: ‘Oh my golly, could this happen again?’”

Some of the lasting effects are small, such as Way Off Broadway Dinner Theatre’s decision to permanently change its buffet from self-serve to employeeserved. Other changes will have direct impacts on artistic output, such as the Fredericktowne Players’ new commitment to providing their understudies with stage time when possible.

Many theater companies are still waiting to see whether other big changes outside of their control are permanent or temporary, especially whether certain segments of their audiences and volunteer staffs who shrank from theater during the pandemic will ever return. Some companies are not sure if their budgets and balance sheets will ever be the same.

New Faces Appearing Onstage

Before the pandemic, most of the local theater companies did not consistently try to cast understudy actors. Embracing the old theatrical ethos of “the show must go on,” it was very rare for principal actors to miss their scheduled performances, even in the face of personal hardships, such as illness, said Stephen Ward, the marketing director of the Fredericktowne Players and the director of their recent production of “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.”

But in the early days of local theater’s return, following the long shutdowns, principal actor absences were unavoidable. One actor testing positive for COVID could derail a production if understudies weren’t ready to step in for both rehearsals and performances. Securing dedicated understudies suddenly became a high priority for all theaters in the community. That priority is here to stay, and it has consequences for the shows audiences ultimately see.

“A positive look from the pandemic is to show how valuable understudies and swings are to a show,” Ward said. “Understudies are the life blood of theater. They help keep things going.”

Justin Kiska, president and managing director of Way Off Broadway, said his theater always made understudies a priority because its shows have long runs, but the pandemic amplified their importance. “The understudies and the standbys and the swings — they are more important than ever in every aspect of theater,” he said.

Ward said Fredericktowne Players, a community theater with all-volunteer casts, is not just privately appreciating understudies who agree to learn multiple parts along with principal actors, it is making sure understudies get at least some time in front of an audience if they can show they’ve put in the work.

He said that new priority is not a simple thing for a production to do. For musicals, it requires having principal actors who are willing to both step aside for some performances and to learn additional ensemble roles on top of their main roles. But Ward said the benefits of letting alternates take the stage are tremendous, practically and artistically.

Recently, he found that when the four understudies he cast for “Spelling Bee” took their turns in the limelight, they brought completely new audiences who came specifically to see them.

“That’s one of the reasons I did it,” he said. “From the profit standpoint, there is that platform.”

He also said giving the understudies a chance to shine allows for special moments of artistic serendipity.

“One of my understudies was an understudy for the lead role, and I guaranteed her a performance,” he said. “She performed one of her dream roles on her birthday and got to showcase all of the hard work that she did. That is something that, as a director, I was very proud to be able to give.”

Tad Janes, producing artistic director of Maryland Ensemble Theatre, a professional non-union company, said, “Pre-pandemic, I can probably count on one hand how many times we hired an understudy for a show.” Now, the MET has an understudy crew booked into its setup.

More than providing a mere backup plan in the event of unforeseen illness, Janes said the new understudy policy is reshaping his company’s culture around actors’ work/life balance.

“It used to be if an actor had a wedding on a Saturday during the run, we’d be like, ‘Well, sorry, you can’t be in