Theater operators to Sununu: Let us seat more people

MEREDITH — It takes many months of work to put on a summer’s worth of professional theater. There are shows to pick, performers to audition and administrative and technical staff to contract. Before any of those decisions can be made, theater operators have to estimate how much they’ll have to pay for all of those expenses. That’s why the most recent update to the state’s reopening guidelines was disappointing to people such as Neil Pankhurst, creative director of the Winnipesaukee Playhouse.

"This allows us to have more employees, hence more expense, but not to have any more income," Pankhurst said. "All this allows me to do is to make a greater loss this year.”

Pankhurst is one of many theater operators who petitioned the state’s Reopening Task Force earlier this month to adjust the guidelines for capacity. The capacity for audience members, since theaters were able to reopen last year, was for each audience party to be separated from other parties by at least six feet. That effectively reduces capacity to around 25 percent of a theater’s given size, operators say. They would prefer a three-foot requirement, with the added proviso that audience members keep their masks on even while seated — the six-foot provision permits audiences to remove their face coverings while seated.

The Reopening Task Force agreed, including the three-foot distancing in its draft proposal dated March 9. But when Gov. Chris Sununu released the updated list of guidelines for performance venues on March 18, the old distancing guidelines — six feet between parties, with the ability for audience members to remove their masks while seated, remained.

What Sununu expanded was the number of actors permitted on a stage.

“I tell everyone to plan big. Plan for a successful summer and a summer that looks more like 2019 than 2020,” Sununu said at the press conference announcing the updates.

The Winnipesaukee Playhhouse put on three shows last year, some outside, some inside. Each of those operated at a loss, Pankhurst said.

“As it stands, for the economic viability of theaters, this has not helped. The point he was trying to make is, this is helping us to reopen theaters. From an economic perspective, this is not the case,” Pankhurst added. “It doesn’t help them in the slightest.”

In general, Pankhurst said Sununu and the state government have been supportive of the arts community, especially through financial support. However, those supports are like “crutches,” Pankhurst said, and he feels that New Hampshire’s theaters could stand on their own if given the ability to seat more audience members.

Asked to explain the decision to remain with the six-foot rule, a representative of Sununu’s office issued the following statement, suggesting that health experts intervened:

“All recommendations made by industry stakeholders and the Reopening Task Force are subsequently reviewed by Gov. Sununu and public health officials. Gov. Sununu and public health officials continue to look at the data, which shows that a distance of six feet remains the safest distance at this time when with individuals who are not from your household.”

Ethan Paulini, artistic director of the Weathervane Theater in Whitefield, said that statement doesn’t seem to explain lessened regulations in other industries. For example, he has received inquiries from someone looking to purchase 50 tickets to two of his shows. Those patrons will ride together on a bus, will likely stop at a restaurant and eat together, but when they come to the show, seating each of them sitting six feet apart will fill all of his 266-seat theater.

“To me, I feel like all of these other industries are being allowed to enforce reasonable restrictions,” Paulini said. His theater is known for big productions, which require a lot of actors, but those shows are destined to be a losing proposition under current requirements.

“If it doesn’t change, then I’ll have to change my season quite a bit,” Paulini said. He currently has a total of 11 shows in mind for his theater, including Hello Dolly, Kinky Boots and The Addams Family, as well as some one- and two-person shows. His bets are hedged for the time being, but he is anxious about damaging his brand.

“I can’t pay 15 actors if I only sell 70 seats,” Paulini said, adding, “After a while, we’re going to need to go back to what we’re known for, which is lavish Broadway shows with large casts.”

The Peterborough Players didn’t host any performances since the shutdown was called last year. Managing director Keith Stevens said the theater will host some this year, though he wishes he could be advertising and selling tickets already. Instead he’s trying to anticipate what kinds of audiences he’ll be able to seat as each month turns to the next. And that’s a challenge of the kind he hasn’t faced since taking on the job in 1996.

“It’s not quite as easy as being able to say, yep, we’re open now, we’ll have a play in two weeks,” Stevens said. “There’s a lot of moving pieces that are put in place beforehand.”

The performing arts venues were the first to close around a year ago, and will likely be the last to get back to 100 percent full operation, Stevens noted. He also noted, as did Paulini and Pankhurst, that New Hampshire has been generous in supporting performance venues through this time. Stevens said that the kind of support they need now is the ability to seat more people. In doing so, they will do their part to spur on a broader recovery.

“We want to be able to reopen and do our work safely and contribute to the economic life, the social life, the emotional life of this state, but we have to do it in a way that is economically viable. If we do it in a way that we lose money every time we open our doors, we aren’t going to be able to do it very long,” Stevens said.