SINGAPORE, Oct 30 —Melissa Lim, the general manager of local theatre group The Necessary Stage, welcomed the resumption of live indoor performances on November 1 as a “big relief” for the arts industry.
“All of us have been waiting for this for a long time. It’s definitely good for companies or freelancers who have not been engaged with work for so long,” she said.
However, Ms, along with other theatre industry figures that TODAY spoke to yesterday, said they were concerned about the commercial viability of staging productions amid safety measures issued in an advisory by the National Arts Council (NAC) on Wednesday.
The safety measures include:
Permitting two zones of up to 50 audience members each for live indoor performances
A distance of at least 3m between audience and performers
Allowing only up to 10 performers to be unmasked at any given time
Requiring on-stage performers to maintain a distance of at least 1m from one another
Allowing up to 30 people onstage and backstage at any given time
For Lim, the most challenging rule is the 3m requirement between audience and performers.
With The Necessary Stage typically staging productions in smaller venues such as its 80-seater black box in Marine Parade Community Building, it may now have to keep audiences from sitting in the first few rows.
This means that the number of people it can accommodate for its shows will be fewer than the maximum 100, leading to reduced ticket revenue, said Lim.
“You have to ask yourself if it is viable to put up a performance with the remaining audience,” said Lim.
Adrian Pang, co-artistic director of theatre company Pangdemonium, was also concerned about having to pay high rental costs even as audience limits were capped at 100.
He said there was “no way” for Pangdemonium to break even if it could host only 100 audience members in its usual venues such as The Drama Centre Theatre, which has a capacity of 615.
Moving to a smaller venue, such as a 250-seater, may also not be a viable option as audience members may still be subject to regulations that require them to sit with spaces in between. As such, even a 250-seater venue may not be able to accommodate 100 people, he added.
Despite being grateful for the resumption of live indoor performances, Pang said that current rental fees that Pangdemonium pays for its venues still made it unfeasible for the company to go back to theatre.
“We need rental subsidies proportionate to the restricted numbers imposed on us, in order for it to make sense,” said Pang.
TODAY has asked NAC if each zone of 50 in a venue must keep within a specific floor area.
However, one theatre company said that the restrictions were “not an issue”.
Wild Rice has seen brisk ticket sales for its upcoming one-woman show An Actress Prepares at its 358-capacity Ngee Ann Kongsi Theatre in Funan Mall.
One thousand tickets for 23 runs of the show were sold out within two hours on October 19, said its marketing manager Linda Tan. Half of another 920 tickets which were put up for sale yesterday were snapped up within six hours, she told TODAY.
While Tan acknowledged that box-office takings will be lower as the venue’s capacity is not maximised, the theatre company will “strategically pick” productions during this period to help them break even.
When asked if they would pass the higher operating costs on to patrons, theatre groups told TODAY that they had no plans to do so.
Besides the issue of cost, some groups also felt that the restrictions would compromise the quality of their productions.
G. Selva, artistic director of Tamil theatre group Avant Theatre, said that allowing only up to 10 performers to be unmasked at any one time will affect the plot and storyline of stage plays.
A war scene in Avant Theatre’s upcoming production, for instance, will feature only 10 people on stage instead of a larger number as initially planned due to the restrictions.
“Having 10 people on stage is symbolic, but it will not give the right feel,” said Selva.
Ong Keng Sen, the artistic director of T:>Works (formerly known as TheatreWorks), said that despite the compromises in production quality, performing groups will have to embrace the restrictions as “there’s not much getting around it”.
“We should restart theatre and performance even though it affects how we direct on stage and work backstage,” said Ong.
“The reality is we are doing a lot for very little in (box office) returns… but there is a need to try to encourage the human spirit right now.” — TODAY
