Community, Theatre – Which Comes First?

Thomaston Opera House

Community theatres are starting to reopen after our long layoff from the nightmare of COVID. Sadly, this coincides with a new spike in the disease due in part to new variants, but mostly due to the reluctance of a minority segment of the population who simply, for whatever reason, refuse to do the things that science and history tell us are the things that will wipe this disease out.

As a theatre practitioner for over 50 years, as a person with a compromising health condition (COPD), and simply as a rational human being, I have some thoughts on this situation, as it applies to community theatres.  The professionals have plenty of folks and jurisdictions for this, they can take care of themselves. But community theatres are, as ever, on their own to navigate these treacherous waters.

For me, THEATRE has always been the more important part of the title Community Theatre, meaning that I make no distinction between the work done on community or professional stages. The work is exactly the same, if you endow it to be. As a retired pro, I know this to be true; I’ve worked on both, and have seen as many terrible professional productions as I have brilliant “amateur” ones. James Earl Jones once said that it is a mistake to look down upon amateur work, as it means to be doing it simply for the love of doing it. The purest reason to do it at all.  So for me, Theatre always was more important than Community.

But lately, I’ve become aware that there are people who have been involved in Community Theatre for years who are, for whatever reason, resistant to the COVID vaccinations. It is their right to feel how they feel.  But, it is not their right to compromise or endanger the other members of the theatre community by potentially exposing them to great risk, and at the same time, to further prolong the course of this pandemic.  So, it is time to put Community first.

It is my opinion that all Community Theatres should require proof of vaccination for all performers, crew, and staff… in short, anybody who works at the theatre. This should start from the first audition. We should mandate the same for audiences as well, as does Broadway, for example, but that may not be possible to do. Masks for sure, for audiences, for as long as they are recommended.

But I would like to say that for those of you who may have enjoyed being part of the theatre community, but now are refusing to do your part to protect that very community, which I am sure you have cared about for years - I hope you enjoyed the work you did. You should not be allowed to do it anymore. 

Unvaccinated people should be disallowed from the theatre world. You are showing, through the selfishness of your actions, that you really do not care for the community, so until such time as you do, you do not deserve to be part of it. All theatres should declare themselves to require vaccines in all casting announcements, as many already do. 

If you can’t do this, it’s a deal-breaker for me. I won’t work with you. I won’t be a party to this disregard for our Community.  I’m dead serious, because I do not want to be actually dead.