 Welcome to Rational Alchemy. It's going to be a very, very interesting chat today because I have representatives from three different types of theater groups. Let me first introduce our guests, and then we'll get into what is really happening. Kathleen. Hi, Nigel. It's nice to be back here with you. I'm Kathleen. I'm with Moon Theatre Company. And I'm just one of the original owners and board member now of Moon Theatre. And I'm just happy to be with everybody and talk about all things theater today. Wonderful. Scott. Nigel, great to see you after many years. It's been a few moons. It has, really, yes. My wife, Mary Lou, and I are the owners of The Jester's Dinner Theater here in Longmont. Fay. I'm Fay. I'm president of the Longmont Theatre Company. And I run the day-to-day operations of the company. Been wanting to be here many, many times for a long time. So I'm happy that it's finally arrived. Thank you so much. Before we get into the main topic here, why don't you each give a little brief in a description of what you do within your theater group? Because each one of you is very different. Kathleen, why don't we start with you? Moon Theatre. Like I said before, I'm one of the original owners. So a couple of friends and I, we established the theater company. We're based out of Berthold. We're a nonprofit. And so all of us all kind of do everything in the theater company from directing to acting to producing to the social media, which has been a trick to figure out. But I think that we're getting better at it. And also even making our own posters and stuff like that. It's, yeah, we're kind of all hands on deck at our theater company. And of course, you don't actually have a fixed location. We don't. We're kind of a nomadic theater company. And so we kind of go where the venues are, the venues that we can find. We've been at the Rialto Theater a lot. Right now, we're trying to kind of stay based in Berthold. And there's a couple of venues there that have been really instrumental in us being able to produce and do some things in Berthold. Skullt. Yeah, so we really are a community theater. It's just that we happen to have a kitchen and serve food and drink, you know? And I think many of the struggles are the same. Obviously we have a space, but my wife and I do 90% of the work there. So, you know, she's at the piano. She's teaching the music. She's doing the costumes. I'm directing and in the kitchen during the night. And then typically on stage, because as you know, there's always a shortage of guys. You can't be a guy in the theater and not be on stage. So, yeah, so it's a lot of hours every week. And of course, you're for profit. Yeah, we've been fortunate to be profitable because Mary Lou and I do all the work. Right, you know. Say. Right, so the Longland Theatre Company owns the building at 513 Main Street. And they bought it in 1991. But the Longland Theatre Company is 66 years old. And it's been in the community since 1957. And prior to being the Longland Theatre Company at 513, it was the potpourri players. And it played, again, very much like your situation. It was everywhere. It was in the Main Street High School. It was, you know, in Roosevelt Park. It was in the Elks Lodge. It was, so they bought the building in 1991. So, as one of our board members said, not long ago, owning your own building can be a blessing or a curse, depending on how you look at it. It's 6,800 square feet. And our mission is to run a self-sufficient Longmont Performing Arts Center plus have high quality educational theater and entertainment. Right. And I do the day-to-day operations every day. Of course, I know the LTC the best. Yes. Out of all of the groups here. And yes, there were days when it was heaven and there were days when it was hell without a doubt. Let's talk about hell for the moment. We have just gone through probably the worst two and a half years ever. How did you survive through COVID? Anyone want to grab this first? Scott, why don't we start with you? Sure. Well, we had some help from the government, but we tried to take advantage of it and do some repairs around the building, do some upkeep things that I would never have had time to do if we were still going strong every day, you know? The thing that was tough, I think, was just the mental breakdown during that time where you just, what am I going to do with my time? What am I going to do? And how are we going to get people back in the theater once this clears up and will it clear up? And we were, you know, we were ready to, you know, there was that time where things were happening briefly in the fall. I think of, was it 2020? Was it 2020? I don't know. But then we were ready to do a holiday show and they shut us down again before the holidays. So, you know, you're gearing up and then you get let down again. And so it was a tough time just to kind of keep any kind of momentum going. I mean, this is the first time that I've actually heard that you were getting phone calls saying, you can't open. Right. I was not aware that that was actually happening from the government. It was from Boulder County Public Health and the state of Colorado. It's amazing. And it had to do with performing arts venues and museums, any place would get large places. We'd get large groups of people. Gathering, right. Kathleen, you're in a slightly different situation. Since we weren't really tied to a venue, kind of our main motivation during that COVID time was up to stay relevant. So, you know, we didn't want the general public to think that live theater had just gone away, you know, and that it wasn't coming back. So to stay out there, what we did is we did a Christmas show over Zoom that we put on our YouTube channel that people could actually donate to watch. So we did something like that. We also filmed a play that we only had crew there and the cast. Everybody was in masks and we did that at the Boulder Municipal Airport. And again, we put that out on Zoom and our YouTube channel. So our thought process, since we weren't tied to a particular venue, was, okay, we know we're not gonna make a lot of money on this, but how do we stay out in front of the public so that they know that live theater isn't going away permanently, you know? And I think that that was kind of helpful because then when we came out of COVID, we put some other things in place that I think when audiences were ready to come back, it was really helpful that we had been kind of out there still. Right, right. Faye, Longmont Theater Company, you're in a very different situation. Right. Well, in January of 2020, now everyone closed in March of 2020. In January of 2020, unfortunately, we lost a very active volunteer. She passed away and one of her pet peeves with our theater was she hated our seats. So when she died, her family set up a memorial fund to rejuvenate the seats. Okay, so now here we are closed with COVID and the money's coming in. And so we used the rejuvenated seat project plus painting and new carpet to keep in front of the public on social media and to let them see the progress and the money from the seats was used to pay for the seats. However, social media, we raised over $200,000 on social media alone just by telling people what we were doing. And then we had our long-time season ticket holders. I receive checks every week. We survived on donations alone because we didn't qualify for any of the grants because we didn't have any full-time staff. Right. Okay, so donations alone, I have never seen fundraising or money come in. We never asked. We asked on social media, but we never asked and it just, checks just came in the mail. We were truly, truly blessed. But the project gave people hope. We were redoing carpet, paintings. We resealed the concession stand. We redid the mirror tiles, everything. And people would watch us and it gave them hope that we would be back, that we were coming back. Right. It was a hope thing. Yeah, very much so. If this happened again, do you think you are now all in a better position to cope with it or would it again be a total disaster? Well, I think now that we've kind of laid the ground on how you progress when something like this happens, I think we would all go, oh, well, you know, we can audition through Zoom. We can put stuff out on YouTube. We can, there's different things that you can do, I think, and we learned a lot during that time. Like speaking for our company, we learned a lot about the technology that we hadn't learned before, you know? How to audition and put shows on and work with some of the new technology that's available. How to advertise without really having to spend anything. You know, it took me a while to figure out Facebook, but I've kind of, I'm moving in that direction. Yeah, yeah. I hear you. Could you give me some advanced training on it? Not advanced training, no. How about you, Scott? I mean, it's interesting that Kathleen mentioned Zoom because that was a brilliant idea. Do you think that's something that you, both of you, but I'll get Scott to answer first, that's something that you might think about doing if this ever happened again? I might think about doing it. We didn't do it at all during the last shutdown. And part of it, same thing. Technically, I don't know anything, you know? So I would have to bring people in who knew what they were doing and so forth, but I'm also just feel like I'm a bit of a purist. I just want it to be on stage and live. And even when we could do it on stage and live during COVID, and you had to have the tables eight feet apart and the stage, you know, 20 feet from the... I just felt like, what are we doing, you know? Even though it was live, you know, it was tough. Because I would have really cut down your audience levels. We had eight tables set up. Oh my goodness. How many do you normally have? It's a lot more than that. 26 tables. Yeah, okay. Not that they're always full, but, you know, with eight tables, you're looking at an audience of 15 to 25, you know, and that's tough. It's not economically feasible. Right. No. How about LTC? Do you think that would be something that would interest you if it ever happened again? I don't, we didn't do very much Zoom as far as the actual Longland Theatre Company and the auditorium and that kind of thing. We had other outside groups that were doing, like Zooming, like Taste of Shakespeare, to keep themselves creative. Right. And because it was a tremendous withdrawal for the actors. And that was their way of staying vital and viral, both. I mean, they needed that. So we didn't do it. We did check into our archived, so when all this started, the streaming rights were not there. Right. And the housing, the licensing businesses or companies changed, and they loosened that up a lot. But we actually got on the phone call and talked with attorneys in Washington, DC and New York City, I did, to see if we could Zoom some of our past shows that we have archived. And the answer at that time was no. It's now changed. Really? Yes, it has changed. So we could be doing more of that, which if this happened again, we probably would. But we were busy, we were really busy, we were closed straight for 21 months. Right. And then as Scott said, we opened back up and then we were closed again that Christmas of 2021. And so for 21 months, we were busy doing all this other stuff. And it was, those 21 months were more stressful than if we had been open, trying to struggle to make theater. They were very stressful. I am surprised the publishing houses actually changed the rules on that. They have, they've loosened a lot. Now there's still restrictions, but they're there. They're there, cause look at all the theaters that streamed, stream shows and whatever. And they would do the pay $20, get a password. Oh, okay. So like that, they could keep track of audience levels because in case people don't know, the amount of royalties you have to pay to the publishing houses is all based on audience level. And there are very specific cutoff points. I can't remember when the first one is, it's about 250 or 300, it's something like that. And it goes up from there. Okay, so hopefully we've now got COVID a little bit behind us, even though it is still a problem. We all still have to be very careful. Have you actually managed to put anything on yet? You know, give us a little idea about what you're doing right now. Say, why don't we start with you? So in May is our May musical. And if you look at our season starts in September to May, we will have a continuous, where we haven't closed for anything. We haven't closed, I'm trying to think. Did we close one weekend for COVID? We may have. Well, I see it's become business as usual now. Oh, COVID? Okay, fine. I mean, I don't want to make light of it, but. So we're happy about that. We're still, we're by no means, we're still trying to get back on our feet. We're still thinking of COVID. We still have a, is the shoe going to drop again feeling? I think we all do. But so we made the board of directors of Longman Theater County decided when we're still COVID that are this last season, this season and the next season, we'll be happy. It will be comedy, it will be musicals, it will be mysteries, it will be to make people come in and be happy because that's what people want to do. I equate it to the roaring twenties after the Spanish flu. It's the same kind of thing. I mentioned chaps, you ought to look at that. Also, look at the murder room. Okay. Oh, that's a good one. That is a really good one. He's still, what's all of three of us now? Do you want me to say no? Yeah, whatever. I think we should call each other before we... Yeah, let's do it. Nothing would be worse if all three of you put on the same show at the same time. I don't think about that, yes. Scott, what about yourself? I mean, yeah, we're back to business as usual, although we've kind of scaled down in terms of how big a show we're doing. So just from our perspective, it's just a little easier to handle. And we've always tried to be really good about double-casting or even triple-casting and working through people's conflicts and schedules and things like that. But it's easier to do with a cast of eight than it is with a cast of 25. So that's where we're at. And business has been okay, not where it was even in 2021, but it's okay right now. Yeah, I always like the way that you double and triple cast because you're guaranteed to bring all the parents and the grandparents. The whole trooper, basically, at some time over your run. That was always a very clever idea. Caffeine, how about yourself? So in 2021, we went back to the Rialto Theater in Loveland and we did a really great play there. And I think at that time, audience were still a little reluctant to come back. I think that we still saw a lot of people in masks. The audiences for the Rialto, which seats 400, were pretty small. It was about 100 people. Oh, wow. And so for our theater company, we can't make it to rent the Rialto, with those kinds of audiences. So we are also scaling back and we thought, okay, so what can we do with little output to make the money that we need to to keep going? So our season for the next two years are two readings. We've teamed up with the Birth and Historical Society. We do a historical reading at the Fickle House in Berthard. We do a melodrama at the museum in Berthard. They have the cutest little venue there. And then what we've been doing, kind of taking a book out of Scott's page is we've discovered if you feed them, they will come. So we've been doing a murder mystery dinner theater on Berthard. And so for our 2022 murder mystery dinner theater, we sold out. And we were able to work with a caterer there in Berthard and sold out every table every night. So... You feed them, they will come. So we scale back on maybe a couple of the big shows that I would love to do with the Rialto in a bigger venue with all the lights and the technology that they have. We got to put money in the coffers first before we embark upon that. I mean, when we were talking before we started recording this, you were mentioning there was one show, you made 26 bucks. Yeah, that was our last show with Rialto in 2021. And that was paying for the tech and paying for the special effects that we have. They have the coolest screen there that you can get this amazing special effects. But we paid for that. By the time we paid for the royalties and we only got a hundred people a night, that was our take home. And we're like, you know what? We have to scale back and reconfigure or we're not gonna exist. It wasn't a loss though, right? It wasn't a loss though. That's the glass half-fold view on that, yeah. Exactly, it wasn't a loss. And we're still here. And you're still here and you're still going. I heard, and I think it was a favor to mention this, that audiences have actually changed to what you were used to in theater. I think, sure, but I think people have changed, period. I have a little saying that I use when I talk to other people. The threads that once held us together, the threads that once connected us no longer exist. We have different threads since COVID. We think differently. Our perception is different. Our priorities have changed. And one of the things that I find that it's kind of interesting that I'm using as a mentor is I have some staff that is 23 and 24. And their thought processes are what everyone else is now doing. Oh. Yeah, and I've learned a lot from them. It's just not the same. And I'm almost looking at it as though it's evolution and we're evolving to something else. So that experiences, so to look at it from the theater standpoint, from the performance standpoint, from the venue management standpoint, it's you need to come out and look at it now from the theater goers standpoint because they don't wanna sit shoulder to shoulder with people they don't know anymore. They don't wanna sit for two and a half hours anymore. That's not what they wanna do. Unless you're a larger venue like the Buell, those kinds of things, that's very different than you than what we have. But their attention span is shorter. They're fidgety. They're more fidgety. I don't know about you, but we let them roam around more because they get up, they roam in the lobby. It's very different. So you have to find something that keeps their attention. And in this case, it's musicals, comedy, parses, mysteries, it's very different. Those will work every time. Yep, very different. People do not wanna be heavy. Right. I mean, I look back at some of the musicals we did, especially the Gilbert and Sullivan's. Yes. Oh, wow. Now, unfortunately, very expensive costuming, but boy are those fun shows. And they always brought audiences in. That was the amazing thing about it. Show's written all that time ago and they're still bringing audiences in. It's wonderful. How about yourself, Scott? Have you seen a difference? Well, I think you're totally right about the attention span and that kind of thing. And of course, we're trying to entertain them from hour and a half sitting, having dinner, and then the show. So I totally agree. If you can keep the shows shorter and with a little more upbeat to it, then you're better off. When you see them out there going like this, you know? Right, right. You're like, God, God. Right. And I can't get my staff to stop serving. That's the hard part too. People come in at a quarter or at 7.15 for a 7.30 show and they still want appetizers and drinks and we're like, we can't do that, but the service are like, we got it, we got it, because they want to please the customer. You're right. That's the thing. I've always loved about theater, a real deadline. For us, if you ain't ready at 7.30 on a Friday evening, you're screwed because there ain't putting it off. And I always loved a real deadline and being from the software industry, deadline was something that flew over your head at about a thousand miles an hour. Kathleen, what about yourself? Have you seen a difference in audiences? Very much so, and I completely agree with Faye and Scott. I don't think people want heavy right now. I think everybody's kind of dealing with a lot right now. And so I think they're looking for something lighter and more fun and something that we've kind of done is picking plays that maybe aren't as well known, but they're kind of interactive. They're not interactive that the audience has to participate too much because that's kind of a turn off sometimes too, but like our actors will come in and engage with the audience one on one while they're sitting there during dinner and just kind of keeping the audience engaged in the performance all along the way. And then hopefully you don't see them looking at their watch. I mean, back before COVID, we would do these two and a half to, well, two and a half hour play, two and a half hour drama. And you'd hear the audience members leave and go, whoa, that was long. That's not what you want. No. You want the opposite of that. Yeah, it's always good for them to say, when, Earth did that? Two of those hours ago. Yeah, well, that, the time just flew. Because then you know you've been successful. Absolutely. Then you know you've been successful. That's wonderful. Final thoughts, anybody? I think, speaking for Moon, we're just finding our way. But we're kind of taking things step by step and figuring out what works like you guys too. What works with audiences, the feedback from audiences so that we can keep going to stay relevant, hopefully make some profit somewhere along the way and just keep bringing live theater. I think that live theater is so important. And I think sometimes we feel like it may be falling by the wayside and I think that would be tragic. Oh no, that would really be tragic. Live theater, actually any arts is important for society. Any arts. And it doesn't matter whether you agree with it or disagree with it, it's important that art is out there. Scott, how about yourself? You know, I think actually the, at least in our area, I think a lot of the schools are doing a good job of keeping kids on stage and promoting the arts. So I think that's encouraging. That is. We talk about lightening things up a bit. You know, we have that front deranged improv troupe in every couple of months and they sell out because people just want to just sit there and enjoy it and not think too hard. For a while, that's gonna be the trend, is keeping it light and short and fun. I've always said, I'm not out there to do theater to like change the world or to somehow give a message but I want to just entertain and keep people having fun. You can do that sometimes with a drama but I think for me right now, let's just keep people laughing. There is one thing I'd like to mention about Scott and this was funny, I'll never forget about this. Scott put on a sort of like acting competition and we're going back a number of years now. My two daughters, darling daughter number one and darling daughter number two, Alex and Vanessa. They did their version of the complete works of William Shakespeare. I have never seen someone be so stunned at what he was hearing coming out of these young kids' mouths. Yeah, that was fun. Do you remember that well? I mean, they really went overboard with it as only my daughters would do. Anyway, say how about yourself? I think the word that we use over and over again amongst us is fluidity, fluid. We have learned to be fluid and by that I mean how to shift quickly to adjust to whatever's happening. Whether like for instance, when we did something rotten we lost the first weekend to COVID. We closed, that was May of 2021. Now, if you are following us, we changed our May musical this year from the mystery of Edwin Drude to something's afoot and we did that for a reason. We looked at the timeframe and said, because we were gonna do immersive theater where people participated. We didn't have enough time to let the actors have enough time to develop all of those endings for whoever they vote for. So we decided, okay, we'll do that again some other time. Fluidity, we're doing this. And to be able to make decisions quickly, to shift, to do what we have to do. And it's working, it's working and it's successful for us. Our Christmas show sold out and it worked and we did some shifting there. It's so fluid, that's our big word, be fluid. It's kind of, you used to look at it as a big ship and how hard it was to turn. Now it's like a little dingy and we're moving quickly. And we have to and it's working. It's funny you should mention shows with multiple endings, because luckily I've never been in one of those. I know if I was, I'd have totally screwed it up. We didn't have enough time. We wanted to give it, it's due credit. Thank you all so much for coming in today. This has been a fascinating conversation about theater, because all of you are doing the same sort of thing, but for different reasons. And that really makes it very, very interesting. So once again, thank you so much for coming. Thank you. Really good. Thank you. In closing, what I would like to say, support your local arts. It is so important. It's the arts that make society and is broadband. Nip into a studio. Have a look at the art hanging on the wall. Nip into a theater. See what they're doing, because what you don't realize as an audience member is the effort that has been put in to getting those people out on stage. And it's not an easy process, I can assure you. Though we all do it because we love it. And the reason we love it is because of you, the audience members that come along and see our work. So go to concerts, go into museums, go into art galleries, go into live theater. There's nothing better. Anyway, I'll sign off for now. I'm Nigel Aves, your host. Thank you so much for watching this program. Goodbye.