San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
To be, or not to be?
Old Globe and its artistic director, Barry Edelstein, pivot during pandemic in push to keep the theater and the art form alive
All the world may indeed be a stage, as Shakespeare famously wrote in 1599, the same year he helped launch the original Globe Theatre in London. For the Old Globe, the Shakespeare-inspired theater that opened in Balboa Park in 1935, the stage has changed dramatically since the coronavirus pandemic spread around the world this year.
“We’ve had this art form for 2,000 years. And now, all of a sudden, we’ve had to reinvent it in the course of six months,” said Barry Edelstein, the Old Globe’s artistic director. “My focus is keeping this art form vital, in the midst of the pandemic, and getting us back to work. In order for us to raise money to support the Globe, there has to be something to support.”
It is a formidable task that paints a vivid picture of the unprecedented state of the arts at a time of global crisis.
In March, the Globe went dark, as did other theaters across the nation and around the world. In May, the Globe canceled its annual outdoor summer season of Shakespeare for the first time since 1947.
The 85-year-old nonprofit also pushed back announcing its 2020-21 season from this April until the upcoming holiday season. When that announcement is made, it will include the new season’s shows without any dates. Not committing to specific dates for its new productions will allow the theater to more smoothly pivot in an arts world now dominated, much like the world itself, by unpredictability and constantly changing sets of circumstances.
The depth and breadth of those circumstances, and the challenges they pose, are also faced by other arts
organizations across the creative spectrum. Like many of those groups, the Globe has embraced livestreaming and new technology. In May, it hosted the online world premiere of “In Zoom,” a new Zoomthemed play by Tony Award-winning actor/comedian Bill Irwin that the Globe commissioned.
The theater is also looking to the future, as underscored by the Sept. 21 announcement that it has commissioned six artists across the country to explore new projects that could be performed online or — when it’s safe to do so again — onstage. The six have also been asked to help expand the Globe’s audience in a number of demographic areas, including age, gender and ethnicity.
In a related development, on Oct. 12 the Globe released a “social justice roadmap.” It was created by the theater in direct response to what Edelstein describes as “the racial reckoning” that has swept the nation this year.
The imaginative initiatives he has championed have earned praise from other arts leaders here, including San Diego Symphony CEO Martha Gilmer.
“Early on in this pandemic,” Gilmer recalled, “Barry asked: ‘How do we keep the arts going and nurture that flame of creativity? Because it is a vital part of who we are, and we can’t let it be extinguished.’ ”
For Edelstein, the Globe’s actions are as much a matter of pragmatism as ingenuity.
“State health officials have to figure out what they’re doing. Public health officials in San Diego have to figure out what they’re doing. And we have to wait while they decide,” he said.
“So, I see an enormous amount of uncertainty. We have a sense at the Globe that 2021 will be a strange interim year where we will put together some kind of hybrid of online and physical programming, when it’s safe, and limp through 2021.
We hope that 2022 is when there will be a really viable recovery.
“We’re looking at radio, audio and Zoom programs. And we are trying to figure out what it would look like to gather people, in a limited capacity, in an outdoor venue. But doing that is subject to the approval of all kinds of other people. The uncertainty is what makes me think 2021 will be strange and weird.
“And, let’s remember, the Globe has contracts with five unions. Each union has their own safety protocols, and we have our own staff. There are 250 people who work at the Globe and we furloughed 122 of them.
That was a massive contraction, but not like the 80 to 90 percent staff reductions other theaters in the country have had.”
Can socially distanced shows with a reduced audience capacity work at the Old Globe?
“With people seated 6 feet apart, the capacity will be 120, and doing a normal show at that scale is simply impossible,” Edelstein said. “When we do Shakespeare in our outdoor theater, we typically have a cast of 24 people, and that doesn’t work when capacity is reduced by 75 percent. That’s why theater producers around the world are saying socially distanced theater is a non-starter. When we fall below 80 percent (attendance) is when we start to break a sweat.
“So, the Globe is looking at other options. Are there some small things we can do in a compelling way, that makes it feasible (financially) with just 120 people? Are there other sources of income, whether its streaming or — in the case of the Globe — philanthropy?”
In the meantime, wholeheartedly embracing the online world and livestreaming is a necessity for the Globe, as it is for other arts organizations.
This approach provides employment at a time when employment is very difficult to come by. It also provides crucial visibility for the Globe as a theater that is engaging with the present and forging ahead to the future, whatever that may be. And it encourages donors to continue providing support at a time when live performances — and the ticket revenues they generate — evaporated overnight.
Ultimately, the Globe seeks to adapt and expand its artistic mission, while ensuring the safety of its performers, stage crew, staff and audience when they are allowed to return.
“There is a contingent of our audience with a high risk factor (because of age), and we wonder how they’ll feel about coming back anytime soon,” Edelstein said.
“The flip side is that there is also an opportunity to reach out to a segment of San Diego that hasn’t been regularly attending past Globe productions. Is there anything we can do to make this art form attractive to them? I don’t know if I have any answers, but we’re trying.”
“My focus is keeping this art form vital, in the midst of the pandemic, and getting us back to work. In order for us to raise money to support the Globe, there has to be something to support.” Barry Edelstein • artistic director for the Old Globe