Olympic Theatre Arts for the past 10 weeks has been reaching out to its list of email subscribers with weekly notifications regarding the theatre’s activities. Despite shutdown restrictions, the OTA staff has remained quite busy.
“There were many projects and hopeful ideas on our lists that we simply just could not get to with our heavy production and event schedule,” OTA executive director Carol Willis said. “In addition to that, we were focused on keeping our constituents engaged and investigating new ways to ‘do theatre’ digitally.”
Below is a synopsis of the email news briefs by week.
• OTA announces the final weekend of activities and precautions in place.
• OTA announces official closing and shares ideas about joining Facebook groups to stay in touch. The primary facebook page was focused on sharing Shakespearean monologues because the theatre’s next event was just that. The children’s group page was launched to provide at home theatre activities and finish elements of the class session that was suspended.
• Decisions were officially announced to postpone the 2019-2020 season. Ideas were solicited to help OTA define its “brand.”
• A big “thank you” goes to all of the front line workers, many of them OTA supporters for their work during this crisis. And a call for artists to create images for the plays selected for the 2020-2021 season (whether its an in-person season or not, OTA still needs artwork).
• Requests for feedback on production value favorites from our past. The idea is to create video clips preserving the memories of past productions and to bring attention to each of these often forgotten aspects of theatre; sets, costumes, props, lights, sound, projections.
• Announcing a unique idea for when OTA can entertain again: “Shakespeare in the Park-ing Lot.” Plans were announced to move the annual Renaissance Faire (which was next up on the agenda) outside, with plenty of fresh air circulating and cloth veils available to don for the occasion.
• Another unique idea emerged, to move the play that was already in rehearsal, “A Facility for Living,” to the opening slot of the new season, October 2020 if allowed … but with a twist. The play takes place in an elder care facility, so the idea is to carry the theme into the audience by checking temperatures at the door and providing face masks with the elder care facility’s ID stenciled on them. Seating could also be limited to maintain social distancing.
• An announcement of a big fundraising campaign with national support, #GivingTuesdayNow, kicking off on Tuesday, May 5 with a percentage of the donations receiving matching funds. OTA announced its goal of raising $50,000 to cover lost income through the summer.
• A big “thank you” was sent for the huge outpouring of generosity from the community. Nearly $23,000 was raised by the end of that kick-off day. The campaign, it was announced, is ongoing through May 26 with the matching funds percentage tallied on the total online contributions at that time. More good news was announced that OTA received its PPP loan from the government allowing it to resume full pay for its employees for two months.
• With all staff members back to work for two months, the theater announced a list of inexpensive refurbishing projects to spruce up the place, again a difficult project to undertake during the normally busy schedule.
“In conclusion,” Willis said, “we are maintaining cautious optimism about the future. We just celebrated forty years as a community theatre in Sequim and hope to be here for at least another forty.
“We remain focused on strengthening our infrastructure and reaching out to embrace new technology for fulfilling our mission. With the continued support of our community I know we will make it through this crisis and maybe even learn a few new tricks along the way.”
For more information or to join the weekly email blast list, contact Pete Griffin at marketing@olympictheatrearts.org or call 360-683-7326.
