TEMPE CENTER FOR THE ARTS enjoy from anywhere By Lisa Van Loo
R
alph Remington feels like he has been stuck on a plane sitting on the tarmac since March, just waiting for a gate to open again. As producing artistic director for Tempe Center for the Arts and deputy director of arts and culture for the city of Tempe, Remington watched as a show that had been fully rehearsed, fully designed and fully teched this past spring, never got the opportunity to meet an adoring audience. Orange Flower Water closed before it ever opened, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. “It was crazy because we were just about to open,” he says. “That was it. Nobody ever saw it.” Oddly, after months of empty theaters, Remington and his staff are embracing Tempe’s vacant performance venues and using them to connect with audiences sitting, not in assigned seats, but rather on a couch or comfy chair, just on the other side of a webcam. Tempe Center for the Arts introduced a program called SHFT, which offers arts programming whenever an audience is ready to enjoy it. The program is somewhat of an evolution, beginning with a virtual version of 54
Arts in the Park, broadcast from living rooms and backyards at the outset of social distancing orders, and eventually bringing artists back to the stage. The audience is just a little further away, and out of view. “At least you can see an artist in a venue on a stage in a performing arts environment,” Remington says of the programming, which includes an open mic night on Wednesdays and an opportunity for DJs to perform sets. “You do what you can with what you have.” Beyond stage performances, Tempe Center for the Arts is offering well-attended virtual arts classes, a program broadcast on Instagram TV that features artists discussing their crafts, and live arts classes for local high schools. Remington plans to launch a podcast on social justice and the arts in the fall, as well. Until gatherings are safe again, he says they’ll remain ready for anything. “We’ll just play it by ear,” he says. “It’s a constant improvisation.” For more, visit tempecenterforthearts.com.
