We Shut Down Our Theatre for 25 Days — and Why I’m Okay With That

Like the rest of the world, I spent most of February 2020 learning about the Coronavirus and watching the spread of it from Asia to Europe to the U.S. I’m a bit of a nerd with this kind of stuff anyway, and I was fascinated by the science of it from a purely objective point of view. PA is not an early primary state, nor is it part of Super Tuesday, yet while many around me were talking non-stop about politics, I was obsessed with the latest COVID-19 updates.

When the first case was reported in the U.S., I knew this was no longer an intellectual exercise. There is no vaccine for COVID-19, and our only course would be to get to the other side of this in the safest, smartest way possible.

I am the Co-Founder/Executive Director of a non-profit theatre in Central PA. My husband, Clark, is the Co-Founder/Artistic Director, and together we make decisions that affect nine people who make their full-time living with Gamut Theatre. In many ways, we are very similar to a “Mom and Pop” small business, but guided by our non-profit mission to tell classic stories in new and exciting ways. Our leadership and the choices that we make affect hundreds of students, volunteers, production personnel and actors, as well as thousands of patrons.

In normal circumstances, this is not a very weighty responsibility. Whether we choose to do Hamlet or Othello or what we decide to charge for an event is not something the general public is waiting with baited breath to find out. I have no illusions that I am an important community decision-maker, and I think I have a fairly accurate and realistic view of my place in the grand scale of things.

But when you are the captain of the ship, whether that ship holds five people or 500, you are responsible for the lives on that ship. They look to you for answers, for guidance, and they trust you to steer in a direction that is fair, reasonable, and safe.

And this is where I found myself the last week of February, when Pennsylvania Governor Wolf’s administration issued its first press release on how to prepare for the spread of COVID-19, and Gamut Theatre was about to open Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People, adapted by Arthur Miller. Our Core Company of nine swung into action:

  • We educated our staff on best practices;

  • We posted information throughout the theatre on how to prevent the spread of the virus and how to correctly wash your hands;

  • We bought extra hand sanitizer and disinfecting wipes and increased our cleaning of public spaces to 3 times a day;

  • We propped open doors throughout the building to cut down on people touching doorknobs;

  • We mandated that our students wash their hands before and after class, and;

  • We re-blocked our student shows for minimal contact.

I felt good about the changes we implemented.

Going into our second weekend of Enemy, our ushers were offering hand sanitizer wipes to our patrons and encouraging them to wipe down the arms of their theatre seats. Gamut issued a public statement about the changes we were making at the theatre. I traded my warm hugs of greeting at the door for enthusiastic elbow bumps while wondering if any of our patrons had visited Italy recently. There were no reported incidents yet in PA, but by the end of the weekend there were seven presumptive positive cases.

“Do you think we will get our last weekend of shows in?” Clark asked me.

“It hasn’t hit Central PA yet. I think we’ll be good,” I answered.

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A four-part profile of the challenges posed to arts organizations by COVID-19

Part 1 of 4
By Melissa Nicholson, Executive Director, Gamut Theatre, Harrisburg, PA

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David Richwine