MUST GO ON...
socially distanced auditorium.this involves removing at least twothirds of the chairs.
So the audience for a thousandseater theatre is reduced to 300odd. You can’t even break even on that.
SO, MY PREDICTION for when the theatres reopen again is that you can forget all of the popular musicals that are such a staple diet of the West End. They are going to be financially ruinous to any producer, as is anything with a cast of more than seven.
Expect instead what the great regional theatres, always starved of cash, have being doing over the past decade: small cast productions, which are homogenous and self contained. These can move from venue to venue. Maybe we’re even looking at the return of the tour bus, who knows?
On the bright side, if you have a one-man or one-woman show, you will now become very much in demand.
Especially during the summer months when you can perform outdoors and the audience can self-distance with ease.
As for the broadcast industries, radio should find things easier. But the lockdown version of The Archers proves that it’s harder than one thinks.
Film companies in Canada are taking entire film crews and casts and isolating them together in a hotel for two weeks before they start filming. I wouldn’t be surprised if it started here.
Actors are lucky in one sense, in that the vast majority of the profession are used to prolonged periods of idleness.
Unemployment is an occupational hazard.
Not that I haven’t been attempting to find employment outside of the profession. I have applied for numerous jobs, from agricultural labourer to delivery driver to shop assistant, all without success.
There are a number of factors that make finding employment difficult. First of all, I live in a rural area, so fewer jobs, though I am prepared to travel.
Also there are millions of people in my position so any job is over-subscribed. Another factor is my age.
I’m 56. Now we all know that age discrimination is against the law. But given the choice between employing a 25-year-old with the same skill set, I think that one would naturally choose the younger candidate.
So, for the first time in 35 years, I have applied to the Government for help.
I have always filled my idle times with part-time work. But the ubiquitous bar or restaurant work just isn’t there.
So I went, with a slight sense of shame, on to Universal Credit. I also applied for and received the government grant for the self-employed.
There will be another grant in August, but then that will be it.
With theatres not expected to open until the spring of 2021 at the earliest, there’s a slight sense of being thrown to the wolves.
I was supposed to start a theatre job on April 21, something that would have taken me through to December, but as we hadn’t started rehearsals when the lockdown started, there was no furlough pay for the cast. Hopefully the job will be there at the end of all this, who knows?
I am luckier than many in the profession in so much as, being over 55, I can access 25 per cent of my pension. But isn’t that meant to keep me in my dotage?
Am I going to have to impoverish myself before I can receive further help?
HOWEVER, I consider myself luckier than many of my friends, some of whom are seriously struggling.the major issue as I see it is: are you even going to come to see us when we start doing theatre again?
I fear that we are going to take far longer than we think to get used to being in a confined space with 800 other people. The great fear for me is not the frivolous stuff, like are we all going to be chasing smaller parts in smaller venues.
Are all “the usual suspect” actors, who are never out of work, going to snap everything up when work starts up again? After all, even in the best of times, there are far too many actors chasing far too few jobs.
No.what matters is whether you are willing to come and join in that unique collaboration, which only happens between an audience and a performer.
We feed off each other. Let’s hope this relationship continues.
‘Are you going to come again?’