American Players Theatre
The summer season of American Players Theatre is the most recent casualty in the struggle to stop the spread of COVID-19. The Spring Green-based classical theater company announced May 15 that all shows in the 1,089-seat outdoor amphitheater and 201-seat indoor Touchstone Theatre would be moved to the 2021 season.
“It is a sad day,” APT’s artistic director Brenda DeVita tells Isthmus. “I am pretty good at keeping my chin up, but I have been talking to the core company members who have been saying ‘You get to hang your head today.’”
The sad announcement came with a small silver lining: The company will be livestreaming a new play series, “Out of the Woods,” on the Wisconsin Public Television website starting on June 5. The plays will be created and recorded via Zoom and available for free for a limited time. (Watch isthmus.com for coverage from theater critic Gwendolyn Rice.)
DeVita says making the decision was one of the hardest things she has had to face at the helm of the critically acclaimed theater company. “It’s been an excruciating couple of weeks — a month actually — and we were working so hard to make something possible. We were waiting for there to be some kind of indication that it’s safe to gather, and as we move forward and we see that the only thing keeping us safe right now is staying apart and not spreading this [virus] quicker, and we think the only responsible thing to do it take care of our artists and our workers this year. It’s inevitable, as sad as it is.”
Many of the company’s actors are under contract with Actors Equity, which is working to develop safety and health standards for its members during the pandemic. On its website the union criticized the recent Wisconsin Supreme Court decision that overturned Gov. Tony Evers Safer at Home orders. “Today is not the day that Equity theatre should resume in Wisconsin,” wrote Andrea Hoeschen, Central Regional Director of Actors’ Equity Association in a press release. “Equity is working to create and implement safety standards that will protect workers and audiences alike and we are letting the science guide our decisions. Right now, there is unfortunately no way to safely perform live theatre. We hope our members in Wisconsin continue to social distance according to scientific guidelines.”
DeVita agrees that there is no clear way to stage performances at this time. “The unions are, of course, taking care of their members, and we need to wait until people have a plan to keep actors and wardrobe people and stage crew safe,” she says. It will be a while, she adds, until “there’s some real nuanced and explicit plans that the theater community around the country can safely with confidence employ.”
Some might have been hoping that APT’s situation might be different, since the largest theater is in the open air. “We thought for a time that being outdoors would help us,” says DeVita. But, they “did the math,” putting circles on the ground, and found that social distancing guidelines would reduce the audience to approximately one-fifth of capacity. “There’s just no viable way to produce with those numbers.”
“If — and I have to say if — there is any plan we can come up with that shows that we can safely do some work and film it for ticket holders or if there’s any chance we can bring in a small audience this fall, we will do that.” But she adds, the company’s fans have already bought so many tickets — $2 million worth — that there is no way to safely accommodate all those people.
DeVita is also focused on learning how to safely rehearse and perform shows without putting actors and crew at risk. “They can’t touch. They can’t hold each other, they can’t talk to each other, intimately,” she says. “And we have to be smart.
“We are so lucky that the people we work with are the people we love,” says DeVita, who is married to veteran actor James DeVita. “People say this is like a family. The nature of what we do and the length of time we’ve worked together, it is. And it’s just devastating to watch your family all in crisis at the same time. But it’s also been incredibly comforting because everyone’s taking care of each other.”
In mid-March, when Wisconsinites began sheltering at home, the company’s members began reading plays together via Zoom. “It was like I had amnesia and there was no COVID when I was on that Zoom call,” DeVita says. “I was like, this needs to be something we’re sharing.
“Walking up the hill right now feels sacred. It feels like we are going to need these things more than ever — it feels like breathing right now,” says DeVita. “To see those actors immerse themselves and let go of all the chaos and immerse themselves in the stories has been unbelievably healing and helpful.”
DeVita hopes fans will tune in to the broadcasts of the plays for a dose of APT. “These plays are a lifesaver for us right now; they renew our faith in what we do. Times are hard, everybody’s going through something, and this is one way to bring some much-needed joy and peace to some people.”
DeVita is also concerned about the impact of the cancellation on the economy in Spring Green, where many of the staff and company members reside. “Our community is a small, tight-knit community. It’s risky in a good year to have a business in Spring Green, and this community will be hurting because of the lack of our patrons coming here in the next six months,” she says. “It’s going to be very difficult for this community, and we have to be here to help each other through this.
“We are thinking of everybody right now.”
