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An audience limited to 40, a larger gap between spectators and actors, double casts and plenty of hand sanitiser...these are just some of the measures islanders can expect as the Arts Centre throws open its doors tonight for the first time in months.
The last performance at the local theatre was ‘Flo and Joan’ on 14 March, and, after 30 weeks, the team is “excited” to welcome islanders back in.
Director Daniel Austin said it took the team four months and a ‘seven-stage opening plan’ to get there.
After the Arts Centre closed on 23 March, the team first focused on “recreating the social and cultural engagement” with islanders.
Pictured: Daniel Austin, the Arts Centre Director.
Over the course of 25 weeks, they shared 1,009 activities and experiences on the website and social media, including daily recommendations, flash fiction, a community photo competition and JAC-anories.
From the beginning of June, the team started “preparing for the preparations”, which included starting a Risk Assessment and launching a seven-stage opening plan.
“We wanted to be methodical and considered and make sure that we had checked all the guidelines. There were lots of discussions, lots of note taking,” Daniel said.
The next step in the plan was to carry out a ‘test opening’ with Café JAC reopening its doors to the public on 4 August. The ‘soft opening’ followed a month later with the theatre companies - including Junior Drama, YouTheatre, ACT and the Christmas Community Company – starting rehearsals once more while exhibitions returned to the Berni Gallery.
Throughout that time, the team also worked on the Autumn programme.
While most of it was already in place at the end of July, Daniel said the “picture kept changing” with professional shows being cancelled.
35 events feature in the Autumn brochure, starting with live theatre tonight (see below), followed by 24 performances of ‘My Family and Other Animals’, which was the Arts Centre’s ‘Theatre in Education’ play in 2009, in December.
Two teams of seven actors are working on the play and each will be performing 12 times. However, if any cast member had to self-isolate, having two casts will enable the other team to swoop in and take the stage.
Pictured: 'My Family and Other Animals' will be this year's Christmas production.
While the past four months have been a challenge for everyone involved, Daniel said theatre experience came in handy.
“It’s not been easy,” he said. “It will be a challenge, but theatre is challenging anyway. When you are producing a play, you bring quite a large group of people together, in terms of actors and the crew, to tell a story and coordinating all of this is a challenge.
“You can respond to any kind of challenges in two ways, either you think about how you can navigate changes, or you can be stumped by them.
“We are very lucky, we have an incredible staff base and management committee. Our collective brain is very good at solving issues.”
Pictured: The audience will be limited at 40 people, 16% of the normal capacity.
In accordance with Government guidelines, the audience capacity has been limited to 40 - just 16% of the normal 250 capacity. Actors will be kept completely separate from the audience. The first row of the auditorium will not be used to provide an extended gap between the stage and the public.
Only five of the 10 rows in the auditorium are being used, with spectators being kept two seats apart. As Daniel explained, this will probably cause a few challenges to the box office team, as the seating plan will change for each performance. “We will have to do this 59 times over,” he said.
Hand sanitiser will also be available, and spectators will have to maintain physical distancing at all times. Meanwhile, tickets will have to be booked and printed in advance.
Pictured: The Arts Centre has been closed since 23 March.
After 210 days without a public event on our stage, Daniel said the team were determined to “make it work."
“We are all very excited. After 30 weeks of not having an event it feels like a premiere or like we are opening the building for the first time even though we have been open 38 years! It’s almost uncontainable.
“The Jersey Arts Centre has done everything that it can, given the guidelines and the advice available to control the virus at our venue and be clear about what we have done.”
When asked about Government’s guidelines and whether they had been clear enough to allow the team to plan for the re-opening, Daniel acknowledges how “walking the tightrope” between limiting the risk of infection and not diminishing people’s freedom must have been difficult.
Pictured: "What would be helpful is to have clarity about the distinction between audience capacity, staff and also company staff and what’s the limit on stage.”
“We have lived in extraordinary times over the last six months, nothing was going to be easy,” he said. “Governments all across the world had huge challenges to communicate to its people in a democratic way what they can and cannot do.
“At the high level of guidelines, the 40 limit [is] pretty clear. What would be helpful is to have clarity about the distinction between audience capacity, staff and also company staff and what’s the limit on stage.”
While the support of the Government has been helpful, he said that, like the Opera House, the Arts Centre's building will need “significant investment” to keep it in good shape for audiences.
“As long as I am the director, I will do everything possible to keep the Arts Centre active and open,” Daniel pledged.
“The Arts Centre is a community venue. Me and my staff are just the guardians of it. It’s important to keep people socially and culturally engaged, and entertained for their health and wellbeing.”
Pictured: Elizabeth Sale, Geoffrey Fisher and Carole Owens in 'Say Something Happened'.
The Jersey Amateur Dramatic Club (JADC) will be the first to take to the stage at the Arts Centre. Between tonight and Saturday 17 October, they will be playing three one-act comedies each evening.
Steve Taylor, the producer of 'Choices', originally conceived the event as three radio plays, but, as lockdown restrictions were eased, along with the three directors, Liz Fisher, Liz Breen and Debbie Taylor, he took the decision to focus on a staged event.
The three plays - 'Say Something Happened' by Alan Bennett, 'Alternative Accommodation' by Pam Valentine and 'Parcel' by David Compton – are all linked with the theme of old age and how we look after the elderly in our families and the wider community.
Dr Adam Perchard, who sang his way through lockdown in his childhood bathroom, will be taking to the stage on 22 October and 23 October – if Government decides to allow singing on stage – with a show featuring pop, rock and musical theatre hits… as well as numerous outfit changes.
As it celebrates its 30th production, ArtsCentreTheatre (ACT) is returning to its roots with a ‘loose’ adaption of Aristophanes’ ancient Greek sex comedy Lysistrata - a play that was the group’s first project - between 28 and 30 October.
The play will also mark a first for ACT, becoming its first ever audio production: each evening it will be recorded in front of the audience.
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