Garden Theatre will separate patrons in coronavirus fight

Garden Theatre productions will play to half-empty houses in the 2020-21 season as the Winter Garden venue becomes the first in Central Florida to announce a social-distancing seating strategy for its upcoming shows.

Online playbills, paperless tickets, outdoor mingling, mask-wearing patrons and limited concessions: The Garden’s evolving plans paint a picture of what going to the theater will look like this year.

“We want to make sure we’re making people feel as comfortable as possible,” said interim executive director Melissa Braillard. The theater notified subscribers of changes in a Wednesday email.

As theaters grapple with how to make their patrons feel safe in the coming months, leaving gaps between audience members has become a frequent topic of discussion. But implementing such a policy comes with significant financial repercussions.

The Garden will sell only 150 of its 297 available seats, a severe loss in ticket revenue. Single seats and pairs of seats will be available to patrons, with two or sometimes three empty seats between groups. The occupied seats will be staggered row by row so no one is sitting directly in front of someone else.

Yet by cutting other expenses, theater executives were able to present a balanced budget to the board of directors — without raising ticket prices or furloughing any employees — for approval last week.

One key change was replacing a bigbudget production of “Parade” with the smaller-scale “A Class Act,” a personal look at how musicals are made that focuses on Edward Kleban, one of the creators of Broadway’s “A Chorus Line.”

“It honors theater and where we are as humans right now,” Braillard said of “A Class Act.” “It’s so uplifting, it seemed better for this time.”

“Parade” will be scheduled in a future season “when we can do it justice,” she

said.

The 2020-21 season will start at the end of August, with “Hello, Dolly!” Patrons arriving at the theater will be asked to wait outside with markings indicating how to maintain social distance as they wait for their tickets to be scanned. Tickets will be digital, as will playbills. That eliminates touching objects, but also saves the theater about $20,000, Braillard said.

Theatergoers will need to wear masks to enter the building. How mask-wearing will affect food and beverage sales is still being determined, Braillard said. One option: Theatergoers may have to order their concessions prior to arriving, and then consume them before the show starts.

Signs and staff will direct audience members to enter the theater through one door and leave through another.

“It will take a lot of education,” Braillard said.

The Garden met its goal of announcing its plans and arranging subscriber seating before tickets to individual shows go on sale June 3.

“A lot of people are really trying to figure out what it will look like to come back,” Braillard said. “We wanted to give people time to ask questions and think about it. We all need a little time.”