A Plague Upon Our Houses

More Shakespeare Theaters Announce
Closings Due to Coronavirus and Decrees

The following theaters have announced postponements and cancellations.

• With Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser’s mandate limiting gatherings to 250 people or less, the Shakespeare Theatre Company suspended all public programming through April 19, prematurely ending the runs of Timon of Athens and James Baldwin’s Amen Corner, postponing NT Live screenings, and cancelling engagement and education programs. The opening of Emma Rice’s Romantics Anonymous will be postponed two weeks, its run now starting April 21. Rehearsals for Much Ado About Nothing, the season’s last production, have been suspended and the play pushed off to the 2020-2021 season.
  
  
• Though The Folger Shakespeare Library is closed for its multiyear renovation, it is still producing programs at other venues, all of those public events through April 21 have been canceled. The Folger’s annual gala, which was to be held at The Anthem April 27, has been postponed to September 14, 2021, and the April 28 Ceremonial Groundbreaking at the library has been postponed to a yet undetermined date.
  
  
• Across the river in Alexandria, Virginia, Brave Spirits, has suspended performances of its Shakespeare Histories repertory through March 29, though it decided to continue with opening night festivities for Henry V tonight, the last play in the first tetralogy portion of the repertory.
  
  
• In neighboring Arlington, Virginia, Synetic Theater, has pushed back its Teen Company production of Romeo and Juliet: Masquerade Dance to April/May, and has indefinitely postponed its production of Life is a Dream/La Vida es Sueño, which was set to open April 22. Even with show’s start more than a month away, “we are almost certain to not be out of the woods of this pandemic,” Managing Director Jason Najjoum wrote in his note to patrons. “We determined we could not take the financial risk of investing in the production and not have sufficient revenue flow back into the organization from ticket sales.”
  
  
• Arlington’s Signature Theatre is canceling all performances and events through March 30. That means cutting short the run of Dani Stoller’s Easy Women Smoking Loose Cigarettes and delaying by a week the opening of Camille Claudel by Nan Knighton and Frank Wildhorn. The theater is planning to record a high-quality video of Stoller’s play to allow those patrons with tickets for the rest of the run to see the production. The theater has also postponed its Sondheim Award Gala honoring Carol Burnett from April 6 to June 29.
  
  
• Canada’s Stratford Festival has cancelled performances and all public events in its theaters from April 11, when the first productions of the season were to begin their runs, through May 2.
  
  
• The city of Cumming, Georgia, informed Resurgens Theatre Company that its Mary Alice Park would not be available to host its North Georgia Shakespeare Festival production of Othello. The company plans to return with a fall season.
  
  
• In Florida Orlando Shakes has suspended performances through March 31, cancelling the remaining runs of Henry IV, Part One and The Three Musketeers. Bare Bard: Henry IV, Part Two has been postponed, makeup dates to be announced. The opening of Deborah Bevoort’s My Lord, What a Night has been pushed back to April 3.
  
  
• Down the highway in St. Petersburg, American Stage is “temporarily postponing all performances and classes.” Currently running is Natalie Symons’ The People Downstairs. “American Stage will resume programming as soon as it is determined to be in the best interest of the community,” says a statement released by the theater.
  
  
• In Chicago, First Folio Theatre has suspended its world premiere production of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women by Heather Chrisler. The theater is “exploring a number of options” for remounting the play. First Folio already planned to take a hiatus for its summer Shakespeare season to overhaul its 23-year-old outdoor stage.
  
  
• With Washington Governor Jay Inslee’s proclamation limiting events to no more than 250 people in the Puget Sound region, Seattle Shakespeare is outright canceling its two spring shows, Troilus and Cressida and Macbeth. “Sadly, due to the nature of the calendar booking in our facility, we do not have the ability to postpone to later in the spring,” Managing Director John Bradshaw and Artistic Director George Mount wrote in a letter to patrons. “We will look at the potential of bringing these productions back in a future season.”
  
  
• In the Los Angeles region, Will Geer’s Theatricum Botanicum in Topanga has postponed its repertory season to at least July. This spring’s School Days programs will be shifted to the fall, but the summer Academy programs are still unaffected.
  
  
• The San Diego Shakespeare Society is suspending all of its events through April 20, including its annual Student Shakespeare Festival on April 18. As to the festival, “along with our producing partner, Write Out Loud, we are reviewing the possibility of postponing to a later date,” the Society’s announcement said.
  
  
• After tonight’s show, the Flagstaff Shakespeare Festival in Arizona will cancel the rest of the run for Sam Shepard’s A Lie of the Mind but hopes to remount the production “in the coming months if circumstances allow.”
  
  
• Ten Thousand Things Theatre Company in Minneapolis, Minnesota, is canceling all remaining performances of Thunder Knocking on the Door by Keigh Glover, Keb’Mo’, and Anderson Edwards. The show was scheduled to run through April 5.
  
  
• Shakespeare on the Sound in Norwalk, Connecticut, has postponed until the fall a staged reading of Macbeth, scheduled for March 27 by the company’s reunited 2017 cast.
  
  
• Red Bull Theater in New York City has cancelled all of its public events to April 12, including a staged reading of John Milton’s Paradise Lost. Also lost is its annual Running of the Red Bulls gala benefit scheduled for March 30, the company’s “most significant fundraiser” and this year honoring Kate Burton and André De Shields. The company “will find a way to celebrate” the two actors “over the coming months,” said a company statement.
  
  
• The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey is rescheduling its Annual Gala from April 18 to October 3, and the Commonwealth Shakespeare Company in Boston has also postponed its annual gala originally scheduled for March 28, but is still exploring “alternate dates and formats.”

March 14, 2020

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