Theater and the Pandemic Players

I promised for my birthday that if Epic (my home theater) hit its fundraising goal, I would publish this interview.

So here we are.

We've all seen the news about a handful of theaters that are performing in the midst of a pandemic, and I managed to find someone who is scheduled to perform in one of these productions who was willing to speak with me.

Here's the interview:

ME:  How are you doing?

THEM:  I'm doing well, thank you.

ME:  Great.  Thank you for talking with me.

THEM:  Thank you for asking me.

ME:  So...what...is going through your mind right now?

THEM:  (Laughs.)  Um, as in--

ME:  As in--you're going to perform a show?

THEM:  Yes.

ME:  In a theater?

THEM:  Yes.

ME:  Inside a theater with other people?

THEM:  Yes, I am.

ME:  I--

THEM:  With safety precautions.

ME:  But even with--Okay, so it's sometimes hard for me to do these interviews and not give away where somebody is, but, um, only two states in this country are doing okay with handling this virus.  I live in one, and there's another one, and your theater is not in either of those states.

THEM:  It's not my theater, first of all.

ME:  The theater you're performing at.

THEM:  Yes.

ME:  So the precautions that you're using are guidelines if you're somewhere you have to be or an essential business.  Not something recreational.

THEM:  We think that art is essential.

ME:  That's a cute little phrase artists use, but we're talking about putting people's lives in danger.

THEM:  You don't think art is essential?

ME:  Here's something you should know about me.  I don't think anything is essential.  I'm Team We All Should Have Been Locked in Our Homes For Three Weeks Like They Did in the Scary Counties So This Thing Could Have Been Eradicated in April.  I don't think anything should be open, but I get that certain things need to be open for financial reasons, and even then, I kind of disagree, but is that the case with you?  Does the theater you're working with need to be open for financial reasons?

THEM:  I don't know what the financial, like, thing is, but I know that we've outfitted the theater--it's been totally done over--

ME:  What does that mean?

THEM:  We're keeping people the right distance apart--

ME:  In the audience?

THEM:  Yes.

ME:  What about you and the other actors?

THEM:  We're distancing too.

ME:  Onstage or backstage or both?

THEM:  Both.

ME:  I have never seen a dressing room in my life you could social distance in so--

THEM:  We're being very careful.

ME:  Do you have enough space in the dressing rooms to stay six feet apart from each other?

THEM:  We put up plastic between the different changing stations.

ME:  What about bathrooms?

THEM:  We were asked to limit bathroom use as much as possible.

ME:  LIMIT BATHROOM USE?

THEM:  Because if somebody uses the restroom, there's--

ME:  I know, there's a whole process, but limit--how many bathrooms are there for your cast?

THEM:  There's one.

ME:  (Exhales.)  I need to take a breath.

THEM:  There's also the restroom in the lobby that we can run around and use during the show if we have to.  We were doing that before.

ME:  But that's for the audience?

THEM:  Yes.

ME:  Are you--I...Are you insane?

THEM:  I should say that the theater was getting a lot of phone calls from people asking when we were going to come back and do shows again.

ME:  Right, people are stupid.  Theater audiences are a particular kind of stupid.  You were going to let that dumbass tail wag that dog?

THEM:  We're just trying to figure out the right thing to do like everyone else.

ME:  The right thing is to not do theater.  It's not hard.

THEM:  But not everybody has that choice.

ME:  That's why I'm saying--Is this a 'We need to pay the rent' situation?

THEM:  I don't know.

ME:  You don't know if the theater rents the space, owns the space, has an agreement--

THEM:  They own it.

ME:  They own it.  So there's no rent?

THEM:  That doesn't mean they don't have--

ME:  They might need money for something, but it's not rent.

THEM:  There's other things that can be owed besides rent.

ME:  I mean, even if there was rent, I'd be telling you that you're crazy for doing this.

THEM:  Can I tell you about some of the other things we've done for safety purposes?

ME:  Sure.  I can't wait.

THEM:  Every audience member is having their temperature taken when they come in.

ME:  Do you know that many people who test positive for COVID do not have a fever?

THEM:  But asymptomatic people are shown that they can't be contagious.

ME:  Okay, that's not a sentence.  Also, what we know about this changes every day.  One day surfaces are dangerous, then they're not, then they are.  Fever is a symptom.  Then it's not.  Then it affects your digestive tract.  Then kids can't get it.  Now it seems they can.  We do not know enough to be going out on limbs and shoving a hundred people into what are notoriously poorly ventilated spaces just so they can watch [Name of Show].  It's not worth it.  Do you believe it's worth it?

THEM:  I believe that people can make their own choices.

ME:  So you've chosen to put yourself and other people at risk for what, forgive me, looks like bad theater.

THEM:  We're very proud of this show.

ME:  I've heard people say that about their basement production of Jesus Christ Superstar where half the apostles were played by cardboard cutouts.  It's touchy-feely bullshit theater talk, and now is not the time for it.

THEM:  When do you want us to do theater again?

ME:  When we have contact tracing, which we're never going to have--

THEM:  Then you're saying we should never do theater again?

ME:  We certainly should never do bad theater again regardless--

THEM:  This is really mean of you to say.

ME:  I may be mean, but I'm not putting people's lives at risk.

THEM:  Nobody is going to be at risk.

ME:  You're at risk.  Everyone doing this is at risk.

THEM:  They're at risk when they go to the supermarket.

ME:  But they have to go to the supermarket.  Food is not theater.

THEM:  I think in the same way you would say 'Food is for the soul.'  That's what theater is for.  It's for the soul.

ME:  Oh my god, just stab me in the face and get it over with.

THEM:  We need people, Kevin.  We need community.

ME:  You need a wake-up call is what you need.

THEM:  The people--The people who are--

ME:  You can get people and community.  You can have someone come over to your house and sit in your backyard and you can have a grand old time.  You do not need to be singing and projecting and sweating in a room for two hours.  Are you even able to properly clean the theater after every performance?

THEM:  The staff at the theater is doing that.

ME:  Have they been trained to do a deep clean?  The kind you would need to do to make sure it's safe.

THEM:  I don't have a team come in and clean my house every day.  But I still live there.

ME:  But you don't have a hundred people over to your house every day.

THEM:  Does Target do a deep clean every day?

ME:  But Target shouldn't be open either.  Not in your state anyway.  Not with these numbers.  Your state's numbers are trending up--not down.

THEM:  We are not forcing anyone to come see us.

ME:  The option to see you shouldn't even exist.  Who is this for?  What is this for?  Can you even make enough money to make doing all this worth it?

THEM:  I don't know about money.

ME:  But as someone participating in this, you should be asking all these questions.  Not just showing up blindly and letting someone tell you everything is under control.

THEM:  I trust the people who work at the theater to do the right thing and for everyone to do what we need to do to keep them safe.

ME:  Has anyone in your cast had the virus?

THEM:  No.

ME:  Has anyone they know had the virus?

THEM:  I--I know someone.  I know a few of us do.

ME:  Do you think it's possible that someone could come see the show, not have a fever, but have other symptoms that might not be noticeable, thereby putting other people at risk, and nobody would know it?

THEM:  Anything is possible.  I could catch this from walking by somebody on the street--

ME:  Not if you're both wearing masks, but yes, even then, it's possible, so maybe don't be out on the streets.  Certainly don't be doing theater.

THEM:  You've just made this decision for everybody and you can't do that though. You can't play god and make decisions for people.

ME:  Playing god is deciding who lives and dies so you can pretend it's January and none of us know any better.

THEM:  I thought this would be a chance for me to talk about how we're doing this safely.

ME:  There is no way to do it safely though.  We can't do anything safely right now, but especially not that.  Are you actually having fun doing it?

THEM:  I am, yes.

ME:  Wow.  Wow, wow, wow.

THEM:  I'm sorry if it's offensive to you that we're doing this.

ME:  It--I don't even think offensive is the word, but--I would really ask you to reconsider.

THEM:  We are looking at the news and trying to stay on top of what is safe and what isn't.

ME:  And who on the news is telling you that indoor theater is safe?

THEM:  We're looking at what's safe for restaurants--

ME:  A theater is not a restaurant.

THEM:  We have asked for them to give us an idea of how--

ME:  Asked who?

THEM:  The state of [Name of State].

ME:  And you haven't heard back?

THEM:  No.

ME:  But you went ahead anyway?

THEM:  We took advice from other states and how they're doing it--

ME:  But not that many people are doing this, so--

THEM:  We used from different fields and--

ME:  My head is going to explode.

THEM:  You don't have to come to the show if you don't want to.

ME:  That's too bad.  I was really looking forward to it.

THEM:  I'd be happy to talk to you more if you'll let me talk about what working on this show has meant to be everybody.

ME:  I'd rather just stop here, but thank you.

THEM:  Okay, thank you.

ME:  Thanks.

Them is probably out of their mind.