Patrick Jordan talks barebones’ future, online hub
Most weeknights, you can see Patrick Jordan in his role as webcast host of Alone/Together/Pittsburgh, which this week will hit 50 episodes since COVID-19 shut down his other jobs as an actor, artistic director and theater owner.
During the day, you can mostly find him at home with his toddler, Pepper, or auditioning via video when a job comes up. But once a week, he drives from his Point Breeze home to his black box theater in Braddock.
He says it is “just to sit,” but there’s more to it.
While his fundraising webcasts have become a community gathering place of sorts, he and other owners of live theater venues are coming to grips with the fact they may be among the last of America’s businesses to reopen their doors.
By now, barebones’ canceled production of “American Buffalo” would have closed, and Jordan would be planning the next show and filming his role in the HBO series “Rust,” starring Jeff Daniels, which remains in limbo due to the COVID-19 pandemic and its devastating effect on the entertainment industry.
Jordan is among Pittsburgh’s “theater facilities people” who meet regularly via a Zoom for a group discussion started by City Theatre managing director James McNeel. As he spoke via phone last week, Jordan was preparing for the latest session, a Q&A with a doctor from UPMC — not unlike some episodes of his webcast.
“Everyone I talk to from theaters across the country, everyone is saying something different,” Jordan said.
In Texas, among the first states to greenlight live theater but with 50% occupancy, a key obstacle for theaters has been Actors’ Equity. Due to health concerns, the union of actors and stage managers is not issuing contracts at the moment and may not allow members on stage before 2021.
Since reopening, Texas is among the states experiencing a resurgence in COVID-19 cases.
In Braddock, the theater Jordan built from scratch, a tiny space with 70 shoulderto-shoulder seats, sits empty.
“The key to my theater is the intimacy of it. You breathe in the same air as the cast; you’re right on top of the action. All of these things are bad now,” he said.
While he is ready to the mike each night to speak with others who are having similar or worse struggles, Jordan wonders if he will have to change his 2-year-old HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) system. And, if guidelines are set to space audience members 10 feet apart, “I’ll be performing for three people.”
Armed with a measuring tape, he has figured out a way to allow for 20 seats and shrink the stage space, but dressing rooms, audience bathrooms, a single, narrow entry into a relatively small lobby — these are problems facing barebones and theaters large and small in the time of COVID-19.
A bright spot, from his job as a talking head with Alone/Together, was a well-attended (about 1,000 live viewers) webcast reunion of barebones’ production of “Take Me Out,” a play that was supposed to come back to Broadway this year.
“That night was pretty big, and it was long,” he said fondly.
With everything going on his life, he didn’t notice when Alone/Together/Pittsburgh reached 40, even though each episode begins with the number on the screen.
“We thought three weeks, and four would be a stretch,” Jordan said of the ever-evolving show, which remains raw and literally homey, with technical director David Mansueto in charge of helping guests with audio and screen orientation.
What started as a way to raise money for and showcase local bands and theatermakers has morphed into a stop for, for example, Three Rivers Arts Festival director Sarah Aziz, on the day it was announced that the festival would be moved to an online platform, and Kevin Mosley, an author, activist and retired state trooper, in the wake of George Floyd’s death and the protests that followed.
The webcast averages four nights a week and has welcomed nearly 200 guests.
The first 10 weeks of Alone/Together/ Pittsburgh went by “in a blink,” said Jordan. Now in week 14, he doesn’t know when it will end, just as he doesn’t know when he will be able to return to work as a performer, artistic director and theater owner.
He does know the archive of his online hosting duties will remain.
“It’s a time capsule of this time,” Jordan said. “It will live online with all the fear and confusion, but also that this was a place for the community to come and know they weren’t alone.”