MONTFORD PARK PLAYERS UNMASKED

By John Russell, Executive Director of Montford Park Players

What a year it has been. In early 2020, the Montford Park Players had another live season in the works. We’d made extensive plans; we’d even held auditions. Then the coronavirus arrived. And everything came to an abrupt halt.

At first we hoped this was a short-term emergency, but as the year rolled on and the impact of what was becoming a worldwide public health crisis became apparent, we realized we’d have to pivot to an entirely new way of bringing art to the public.

This is something we’d not attempted before, but we learned quickly. We jump-started a season of virtual programming, and, in October, after we were allowed to re-open the amphitheater, we invited community groups in to use our outdoor space.

Due to generous donors and careful allocation of our resources, we were able to survive the year, although I know some arts venues and organizations did not.

Now we just had to figure out how to safely reopen to the public. How can you mount a live season of theatre while still keeping the actors, staff and audience safe? We looked at many studies and attempted to synthesize the best practices of such diverse organizations as theatres, dance companies, operas and art museums. Some of these included: having the actors masked and socially distanced during the rehearsal period; physically separating the actors from the audience and the audience members from each other; proper handling of the audience entrance and egress, restrooms, lines for bar and food vendors, and mandatory masks — in short, a multitude of scenarios where everything had to work as designed, with the realization that if one part failed, the whole thing could come crashing down and endanger the public. What a nightmare scenario we were facing!

We envisioned a season where we were constantly masked and carrying around tape measures, to ensure that no one got within six feet of anyone else.

The one area we felt could ease our concerns, yet one over which we had no control, was the number of people becoming fully vaccinated.

And fortunately, that’s what happened. Enough Americans “got the jab” that the infection rate began to fall, and it became safer to gather in ever-increasing numbers outside. First, as more vaccines came available and more younger people could be vaccinated, the need for outdoor masking went away, and then the CDC declared that fully vaccinated adults could gather outdoors. Then the social distancing mandate went away for fully vaccinated persons, and suddenly we began to approach a hoped-for milestone of having a “normal season.”

And that’s where we are today. After our first weekend of masked and socially distanced theatre, suddenly we’re back to normal. And our audiences are so thrilled to be able to experience live entertainment again. We’re hoping that our colleagues in indoor venues will soon be able to get back to presenting a regular season, giving their patrons the same wonderful experience after a year of isolation.

Actor Jackson Cole as Romeo in Montford Park Players’ 2019 production of “Romeo and Juliet .”

Photo by Sebastian Michaels