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It’s hard to imagine a worse situation for live theater than a global pandemic. The entire model relies on people gathering in person, sometimes in close quarters, for hours at a time—the perfect conditions for spreading a respiratory virus.
But what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, as the saying goes, and as D.C.’s 2023-24 theater season kicks into gear, local artistic directors spoke with City Paper contributor Jared Strange about the new and old challenges they’re facing.
“It’s harder now, to be candid,” Arena Stage General Manager Alicia Sells says. “Our expenses are greater, both in terms of the COVID expenses we’ve had but also in terms of the economic climate, in terms of inflation in both pay and goods.”
Round House Artistic Director Ryan Rilette and Managing Director Ed Zakreski tell Strange that they went through nine versions of their budget this season, which is three times the number they usually draft, and they had to make some tough decisions.
“A world premiere musical that we had been working on for quite some time, we had to jettison once we got to the budgeting process because the numbers were just so stark,” Rilette says.
Strange writes:
By and large, the drain on finances is driven by two factors: a decrease in ticket sales and an increase in costs. The latter is heavily influenced by long overdue changes in labor conditions, one of many facets of the field called into question by the likes of the anti-racist principles outlined in We See You White American Theater, a manifesto developed by a collective of BIPOC artists at the height of the pandemic.
The overall mission of a given theater is also front and center in the planning process. For Maria Manuela Goyanes, Woolly Mammoth’s artistic director, aesthetic innovation and civic provocation are driving factors.
“Sometimes I am told in surveys by our audience members—it’s few and far between but, it does happen— that folks sort of see the way I program as having some kind of agenda around people of color,” she says. “I want to live in a world where people—like in my community, the Latinx community, and all the different communities—are all welcome and included in the conversation here.”
To read more about the resurgence of local theater companies and how various artistic directors went about planning the current season, read Strange’s full piece on our website.
—Mitch Ryals (tips? mryals@washingtoncitypaper.com)
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