By Nikki Suzani
Town Crier Editorial Intern
The coronavirus pandemic has put a strain on small businesses everywhere – including theater companies.
TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, which stages several of its productions in Mountain View each year, last month canceled “They Promised Her the Moon” and postponed “Ragtime.”
The cancellation of “Moon” just days after it opened cost TheatreWorks more than $100,000, according to company representatives, but planning mechanisms and donations from the community have helped mitigate the economic impact.
“We spent the last six years trying to strengthen our financial position. Coming out of the last recession, where we lost so many of our peers, we wanted to make sure we were as stable as possible before the next bump in the road came up,” executive director Phil Santora said. “This isn’t what we thought it would be, but here it is. Additionally, over 70% of the patrons we’ve spoken to so far have donated their tickets back, which has been enormously helpful in mitigating the economic impact of canceling that one show.”
The company is now getting creative in other ways.
“What we’re trying to do is continue to find ways to serve the community through online programming, continue to adapt our in-person programming based upon what we’re hearing from health officials, and encourage those community members who are able to support us,” Santora said. “In a moment like this, which is so unprecedented, the greatest gift we can get is time – time to figure out what’s going on, to see what’s playing out, and adapt.”
Some of those adaptations come in the form of offering online productions. TheatreWorks has streamed recorded performances of “Moon,” “Oskar and the Big Bully Battle: Part 2” – a play aimed at kids – and last year’s “Pride and Prejudice.”
Since “Moon” closed so quickly, TheatreWorks initially offered access to the video to those who purchased tickets – even if they exchanged them or donated them back to the company, “just so they can see the work, because we wanted that piece out there,” Santora said. “Our artistic team is also coming together to figure out other ways we can reach our community and continue to provide service.”
Employees have been able to use Zoom and other online resources to continue working while following the shelter-in-place guidelines. TheatreWorks on Thursday canceled its production of “Book of Will,” scheduled to open in early June, after preparing for that play to go on.
“As of right now, we’re taking it sort of as a challenge,” Santora said. “Theater is always about overcoming obstacles to create something great that serves the community and touches people’s hearts. This is the new challenge. I think we’re really banding together from remote locations.”
And to help the broader community, Santora said TheatreWorks has offered to make protective masks.
“We take our patrons’ health and our health very seriously,” he said. “Our costume shop actually offered to stitch masks for first responders. We can’t do surgical grade … but I have trained stitchers at home to help the community if that’s what they need at this moment.”
Like the nation, TheatreWorks will get through this crisis, Santora said.
“As far as stability, this is going to be hard – there is no way to avoid that statement,” he said. “Having said that, we’re entering it more stable than we’ve been in a number of years. As long as we all come together to find ways to work together through this process, we’re confident there will be a TheatreWorks after this.”
To support TheatreWorks and for more information on the company, visit theatreworks.org.
Update: TheatreWorks is now making protective masks, according to Santora.
