Like the rest of the world, I spent most of February 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 9 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 populace 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 5 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 the boat and make decisions that are fair, reasonable, and will keep them safe from harm.
And this is where I found myself the last week of February, when PA 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 9 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. 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 7 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.
On Tuesday, we were contacted by one of the high schools scheduled to bring 150 students to see Hamlet that Friday. Would there be a financial penalty if they decided to not come to the show? I told them no, we have a long-standing relationship, and there would be no penalty. I assured them that we were cleaning vigilantly, and if they were comfortable with their students being at school, I felt that we were doing as good of a job, if not better, with keeping Gamut to a high standard. My mind started racing to the task of disinfecting 150 seats between the Hamlet student matinee and the public showing of Enemy that same day and what the best way would be to do that. That morning I had stopped by the grocery store to pick up more Clorox wipes and the shelves were empty. I was so glad I had picked up extra the week before. We would be good for the weekend.
By Wednesday, our good friend from Connecticut called to tell us she would not be able to make it to town to see the show. Traveling at this time was not prudent. As I sat in rehearsal directing our Young Acting Company production of Cinderella, a show with 50 students ages 6-18 who live in a 5-county area, we got the news that Penn State was closing all of its campuses and switching to online classes. Despite the fact that we review best practices for hygiene at the beginning of each Young Acting Company rehearsal, I watched that night as one student accidentally sneezed into his hand instead of the crook of his arm. I stopped rehearsal and made him get a sanitizing wipe. I separated two girls who were playing with each other’s hair. I realized I was watching the kids in the audience as much as, if not more, than the work that was happening on the stage. After rehearsal, I helped stage management with the arduous task of wiping down every mask and prop that was handled that evening, and it hit me: this was no longer a matter of if we would close the theatre, but when; something I had known in my heart for several weeks, but had finally articulated in my mind.
Thursday morning we contacted our Board of Directors. Clark and I had had a long discussion Wednesday night about whether or not to move forward with our shows that weekend, and we realized that we could not make this decision ourselves; we needed the advice and input of the Board. We held a lunchtime conference call for any of the board that was available to attend and voiced our concerns.
Clark and I were both leaning toward canceling the final weekend of shows and trying to decide what else to cancel… We had five major events happening in the next three weeks. Should we just cancel public performances or extend that to our rehearsals and classes? What about auditions? We knew that slowing down the spread of the virus was one of the best ways to ensure that our hospitals and medical facilities were not overwhelmed and able to help those in serious condition. Avoiding and canceling/postponing "large public gatherings" was one of the best ways to slow down the spread of the virus. But what is a "large public gathering?" Some said 1,000 or more. Some said over 250. Gamut seats 200, and our average audiences are around 50, although Young Acting Company, Hamlet student matinees, and Improvapalooza are historically 150-200 per performance. Would it really be that different to be in a crowd of 200 versus a crowd of 250?
Up until that day, our thought was to take our cues from the government: when it’s mandated, then we’ll do it. But the hard fact was that we had seen in other regions and countries that by the time many governments made recommendations or pronouncements like limiting public gatherings, it was too late. The world population was learning that the BEST time to close was BEFORE the virus hit your area hard. Likewise, our thought for Young Acting Company and Popcorn Hat Players (our children’s theatre at Gamut) was to take our cue from public schools. If they are open - we are open. But was this best? Were school administrations able to act fast enough to keep up with this particular virus?
Doing what's right isn't always easy. It was not lost on Clark and me how very ironic it was that we were doing An Enemy of the People, a play that confronts the clash between doing what's best for public health versus what’s “best” for the public economy. Sometimes you have to make your decisions without a government mandate. How hypocritical would we be to make one statement on stage artistically, but make a completely different statement in practice through our actions? As a non-profit organization, we are to be mission-driven and not just make our choices by how it affects the bottom line.
We had a great discussion, and in the end, the board recommended to keep our shows open for the weekend and let the public decide if they wanted to attend or not. Ultimately, though, the Board put their trust in Clark and me, and said they would stand behind whatever we decided to do. Our Board President, Alexis Campbell, wisely advised holding off on making any rash decisions for the next week and beyond until after Governor Wolf had his 2:00 PM press conference that day.
We went from Board meeting straight into a Staff meeting, still operating under the assumption that we would do the shows over the weekend. We discussed what a closure beginning the following week might look like and how we would handle it. My stomach was in knots. I still didn’t know if we were making the right decision. I did a quick inventory - we had maybe 10 days of cleaning supplies left at the rate we were going, and probably just enough hand sanitizer for a week at best. Plus, we learned that to truly disinfect an area with Clorox wipes the directions said, “use enough wipes for treated surface to remain visibly wet for 4 minutes.” We weren’t doing that. Was anyone doing that?
We ended our Staff meeting minutes before the Governor held his press conference. There were now 21 confirmed cases. The Wolf Administration shut down public events in Montgomery County, where the majority of cases were located, and discouraged public gatherings statewide. Clark and I immediately looked at each other and at the same time both said, “We need to close.” Again, our team swung into action. We had a second staff meeting and made the decision to not only close for the weekend, but take it all the way through the run of Cinderella: 25 days total. In our minds, there was no reason to cancel shows only to continue to rehearse with and teach over a hundred students each week. And so we issued our statement. We sent our press releases. We contacted our patrons, students, parents, volunteers, actors and production teams. And I slept like a baby that night.
Was I worried about the students getting sick? A little, but I was much more worried about spreading COVID-19. If you follow what’s happening with this virus, you know that children and young people fight it off fairly well. But children pass diseases around like crazy, and what if one of them carries it home to an aging grandparent that can’t fight the disease? What if I carry it home? My father is 91 and healthy, but he is 91 and lives in the same house as me. My husband is 55 with a compromised immune system and one kidney. These risks are very real to me, no matter how much it costs. And it does cost.
In one fell swoop, our decision cost Gamut over $10,000 in advance ticket revenue and a potential $20,000 in total ticket sales. I am in the process of evaluating how much all of this is going to cost us in real dollars and cents. You would think as the administrator that oversees the budget that I would be a complete mess right now, but I am not. I am calm, upbeat, and strangely at peace with myself.
As I write this, there are 47 presumptive positive cases in PA. That happened in one week. I am so thankful for the readiness and decisive actions of the PA Department of Health and the Wolf Administration for giving us clear guidelines. It was exactly what Clark and I needed to have confidence in making the hard decisions that we did on March 12. Now, we are working our way through rescheduling what we can and making adjustments to the remainder of the season schedule. As the financial markets take a plunge, and our own revenue comes up short, it is clear that there are difficult times ahead. But on this day, at this moment, I know that we made the right decision.
This is a strange time for live entertainment. We are normally the place that everyone turns to during a crisis to find comfort and community. How odd to be thrust into the spotlight as a potential enabler/inducer of the crisis at hand. I urge everyone to please refrain from being overly judgmental on how organizations handle their response to this pandemic, whatever your view. Whether you think this is being blown out of proportion or the prequel to Logan’s Run, just realize that we are in uncharted waters, and we are all just trying to steer our ships the best way we know how.