Waiting to get back to play
Productions can return to stage after June 30
SYDNEY — After a spring of mostly delayed plans, Highland Arts Theatre artistic and executive director Wesley Colford is hoping for a busy summer and a path back to normal.
“Right now, we’re still basically shut down,” Colford said Thursday. “We are allowed to do rehearsals and we’ve been doing that already online for the past few weeks and (starting Wednesday, with Phase 2 of Nova Scotia’s COVID reopening plan), we’ll do it inperson so that’s all positive. We’re getting ready for our first MainStage production which is going to be Shakespeare In The Park, ‘The Comedy of Errors,’ so they’ll be rehearsing outside at the park which is an extra layer of safety, which is great, as well as our first HAT Academy production which was rescheduled but will be happening in July which is ‘Alice In Wonderland.’”
“The Comedy of Errors” will be shown outside at several Cape Breton public spaces. It will run July 6, 7, 8, 13, 14 and 15 at Sydney’s Open Hearth Park, July 9 at Indian Beach in North Sydney and July 12 at Rose Schwartz Memorial Park in New Waterford.
All the shows originally scheduled for June had to be rescheduled since live theatre productions can’t be staged until Phase 3 of the province’s reopening, which means after June 30. That includes “Something To Sing About,” Ciarán MacGillivray’s new show that is now scheduled for Sept. 7 to 19.
Because of the theatre’s Radical Access program, which allows for free theatre through monthly donations, “Something To Sing About” will be available at no charge.
“Without Radical Access we would have been sunk close to a year ago,” said Colford. “Thankfully we continue to have support from many, many people across North America which definitely is what got us through this third wave shutdown. There is still some amount of support from the government which we certainly appreciated but that alone is not enough to pay the bills. Having that backbone support from Radical Access is one of the reasons why the program was created. It was exactly what was needed to get us through the tough times and then as a result, even though it’s been quieter the last two months in terms of production, the summer is certainly going to make up for it.”
Colford is hopeful the program will be able to continue and a telethon to help fund it has been scheduled for September.
“I hope people will see just how amazing this is for everyone. Everyone is benefiting. People who’ve come before are paying less than they did before — they’re getting tax deductible receipts for their donations which they wouldn’t have gotten for their tickets and people who don’t necessarily come but who are donors are helping support free live theatre in the local community for everyone and obviously there’s people who can now see shows who could not otherwise afford it or hadn’t been interested before. There’s so many great benefits to the community.
“And then for us ... we know that we have some level of basic income for the organization and we can take chances and pay the bills and do all the programming that we want to do.”