3 New Things Theatres Are Doing in Response to Covid

There have been many disasters that have forced theatres to close, such as fires, floods and plagues. The last is the cause of almost a year of theatres being closed to traditional performances. However, the ever-resilient art of theatre thas pivoted and adapted to the challenge, continuing to create and explore. Let’s look at what Quest and other theatres focused on when the show couldn’t go on as planned.  

1. Creating plays for non-traditional venues 

Due to gathering restrictions, theatre shifted to creating performances in non-traditional venues. There have been performances that audiences watched from their cars, from a distance, through clear screens, and outdoors. Site-specific theatre has always been a format of creating theatre, however more theatre companies embraced creating for non-traditional venues, including digital (which we’ll talk more about below).  

2. Shifting their focus to accessibility   

Though the conversations around accessibility in theatre have been happening prior to the pandemic, the break from productions has given theatre companies room to reexamine their values and mandates. Locally, our community was offered the 35//50 Initiative, which called for more steps to an “equitable, diverse, inclusive, and accessible future in the performing arts.” Our response can be found here.  

Other steps towards accessibility include our friends at Inside Out Theatre, a Deaf and disability theatre company. They have focused their work on creating theatre that is accessible in all aspects, such as community theatre, producing plays created by artists with disabilities and improving accessibility for audience members. During lockdown they created an Artists Basic Income to assist artists with cash support.  

3. Creating digital content 

Zoom became theatre’s best friend in the first few months of lockdown. At Quest, we transitioned our summer camps to Zoom and now are working on Digital Productions. Reimagining theatre for a digital medium has opened the door to new possibilities. Our latest adventure has been seeing how to implement Augmented Reality into a theatrical context.  

Written by Lizzie Rajchel