Can curtain ever rise on SA live theatre again?
● Some venues may not reopen before February, others not at all
From Cape Town to Pretoria and Durban, theatres lie in darkness — and they say they will battle to keep the curtain up after the Covid-19 crisis.
The struggle to stay afloat culminated in the demise of Cape Town’s Kalk Bay Theatre this week.
Owner Vanessa Harris said: “Sadly, there is no easy way to say this.
“The Kalk Bay Theatre — or Followspot’s special version of it — is no more.
“With the ongoing building and staffing costs, and no income since our doors closed, we simply could not keep it afloat.”
Harris said she had tried innovative ideas to save the theatre and its restaurant, “but the brick wall in front of us was impenetrable”.
“The devastating end result is that we had to terminate the lease with our landlord, and our running of the Kalk Bay Theatre and Restaurant.”
“We would like to add that this is not the end of the book, just a closing of one chapter.
“We have every intention of finding another space that we can call our own to continue to entertain you as soon as we possibly can.”
Harris said support staff were now jobless.
“We had seven local staff who were from Masiphumelele who worked in our restaurant.
“Unfortunately we had to retrench them.
“It was devastating; it’s beyond words.
“The theatre was established 16 years ago.
“We took over about 10 years ago when it was pretty dismal.
“The theatre was actually losing half a million rand a year and we took it over as a project that we could turn around, and we did.
“It became profitable to the point that we were sold out every night and making enough for us live off.
“Taking a loan was not an option ... I can barely feed myself at the moment.”
Roland Stansell, creative producer at The Rhumbelow Theatre in Durban, said theatres were unlikely to reopen before February.
“We are in a very fortunate position in that we recorded our shows over the years.
We are streaming shows online so people can make a donation to us and we give them the link to watch the show,” he said.
“We are hoping that will generate enough revenue to keep us afloat.
“I am of the opinion that theatres will be open in February, but I think it’s going to be a challenge to get people to come back to theatre.
“We hope that at some point during the lockdown we can do what we call ‘limitedaccess shows’ where we can have 20 or 10 people in the venue with a distance between them, and auction off the performance.
“I believe that we have supporters who would be prepared to pay R1,000 if they know that they are part of the 10 that will actually see the performance live.
“When that will be able to happen?
“I have no idea.”
Clive Martin, head of the Pretoria Youth Theatre, said it had cancelled four productions.
“The day before the lockdown we had to cancel our show which was starting the following day. We had to cancel all shows as well, so we lost everything,” he said.
“We had to cancel our presentation with schools.
“We can’t even refund people.
“We weren’t able to pay the artists because we pay them from door sales and door sales never happened.
“One or two of them said they were struggling, so we gave them a bit of money to see them through the lockdown period.
“On one show there were about 25 artists.
“They are all young actors.” —